


But You Just Can't Find The Words

by Lyri



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 55,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyri/pseuds/Lyri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared and Jensen have been fooling around for years, but when Jared suddenly announces he's moving to Tokyo, Jensen can't really find the words that would make him want to stay. So, after one last, perfect night together, Jared flies out of Jensen's life. But not without leaving something for Jensen to remember him by.<br/>Fast forward four years, and Jared is back, tired of living a lie. But Jensen's life has changed so much in the last four years that he doesn't know if there's room for him anymore. And Jensen has a secret that could put an end to the whole thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But You Just Can't Find The Words

**_                 But You Just Can’t Find the Words _ **

**__ **

** Prologue **

 

It was Jared’s leaving party, that’s where everything about Jensen Ackles’ life changed so very, very drastically.

Jensen and Jared had fooled around for years. Never anything serious, more like a friends with benefits kind of deal. And damn, were those benefits _good_.

Still, neither of them had mentioned anything about it being a real relationship, but it didn’t escape Jensen’s notice that neither of them had even tried to date anyone for at least two years, even though they’d both had more than their fair share of offers, from both male and female admirers.

Besides, it was Jared. Jared was always more than capable of asking for what he wanted, and if he did want something more, well, Jensen was just going to have to be patient.

This is why it came as such as surprise to Jensen when Jared announced – while in bed, literally thirty seconds after one of the most intense orgasms of Jensen’s life – that he’d been offered a job at some high tech software programming company…in Tokyo.

Jensen doesn’t really understand Jared’s job, it’s got something to do with computers, he knows that much, but come on, Tokyo? Who moves to Tokyo for a God damn job?

Well, Jared Padalecki, apparently, because six weeks after he dropped the bombshell about the job, Jared’s apartment has been sold, most of his things have been shipped to his new home in Tokyo and he was staying at Jensen’s place until his plane leaves just after noon the day following his leaving party.

And now Jensen’s house is filled to bursting with people, most of whom he knows through Jared, but a few of his own friends from work had shown up and Chris and Steve are currently blasting out their classics on the stage they’ve set up by the front window.

And yet, despite all the people crowded into his house – more people than he’s really comfortable with – Jensen still finds himself getting more and more depressed as the night goes on and he can feel Jared’s eyes on him from across the room.

It completely sucks that Jensen’s just realizing his feelings for Jared when it’s much too late. Not that he’s actually admitted to himself that he’s in love with Jared, but, you know, baby steps.

Jensen tries not to bother Jared. It’s his last night at home, the last time for who knows how long that he’ll get to see all of these people, the last thing Jensen wants to do is hog all his time and keep the giant moose of a man to himself.

Alright, so that’s exactly what he wants to do, doesn’t mean he’s going to do it.

Jared finds him in the kitchen sometime after midnight. Jensen’s staring into the sink that’s empty but for one bottle of beer whereas four hours ago it was full to overflowing and Jared just takes the bottle from Jensen’s hand and laces their fingers together.

The party’s still raging on. Chris and Steve have moved on to cover versions now, and Danneel is on stage with them, tequila shot in one hand as she joins in the chorus of  ‘Walking in Memphis’. No one pays them the slightest bit of attention as Jared leads Jensen through the chaos to the stairs and up to Jensen’s bedroom on the second floor.

It’s quieter up here, the whole of the upstairs closed off during parties to everyone but Jensen and his closest friends and Jensen takes a moment to let himself breathe in the stillness that is a lack of people before he tries to figure out what’s going on.

Jared takes him to his bedroom and directs him towards the bed. He takes off Jensen’s shirt, then pulls his own t-shirt over his head before he urges Jensen to lie down.

“I know,” Jared says softly, crawling up Jensen’s body to kiss him gently. “I know.” And Jensen has to frown, because…what the hell does Jared think he knows? How completely crap it is that Jared’s flying off to the other side of the fucking planet and leaving Jensen here alone?

Because, yeah, that is more than crap.

But instead of saying anything more, Jared rids them both of their jeans and reaches for the nightstand.

Jensen’s already hard and leaking by the time Jared uncaps the half-empty tube of lube, too turned on by the intensity in Jared’s eyes, the fire and need that’s written all over his face.

Jared gets him ready quickly but thoroughly and then he’s pushing inside and it’s amazing. It’s slow and sensual and full of something Jensen can’t even name.

The party goes on without them as Jared and Jensen stay tangled in the sheets and Jensen tries not to think about this like it’s a goodbye.

 

///

 

Jensen wakes up the next day to an empty bed and sunlight streaming through the windows where he forgot to close the drapes.

There’s a note on the pillow where there is usually a Jared and Jensen picks it up warily.

_They have phones in Japan, you know. And computers, too._

There’s a phone number written underneath the words and an email address he’s known by heart since college.

Jensen rolls over and goes back to sleep.

 

///

 

Jared stands in the middle of the crowded airport lounge, waiting for the screen to tell him when to board his flight and wonders just what the hell he’s doing.

He’s about to fly off to some unknown country, somewhere he’s never been, somewhere he knows absolutely no one and can’t even speak the language, and he doesn’t even have a good excuse.

There’s an announcement, his flight number is mentioned and the screen tells him to make his way to the gate.

Jared looks around. He doesn’t know anyone here and he has to admit – if only to himself – that his plan has backfired pretty epically.

His pride gets to him, Jensen would probably say it was his stubbornness, but whatever it is, Jared picks up his bag, takes one last look at the faces of the strangers around him and makes his way to the gate.

He hands over his boarding pass and passport and smiles at the girl who looks like she’s been on her feet for a while and then he gets on the plane.

It’s not long after that that the plane takes off and Jared watches out of the tiny window as he leaves Texas – and Jensen – behind.

This is so far from what he wants to do that it’s not even funny.

 

///

 

Three months later and things are…okay.

Jensen hasn’t spoken to Jared, although they have exchanged a few short emails, Jared telling him how busy his new job is keeping him, barely giving him time to eat and sleep, let alone shower or go out and meet people.

Jensen takes some small measure of comfort in the fact that Jared hasn’t replaced him yet and doesn’t email Jared again. If Jared’s so busy, the last thing he needs is to be bothered by an ex who lives thousands of miles away.

He’ll wait until Jared contacts him again, and no, he isn’t counting the days of no contact like an insane person.

Danneel comes to visit him one day and finds him bent over the toilet bowl in the downstairs bathroom.

She convinces him to go to the doctor. He can’t pass this off as food poisoning anymore and Jensen knows she’s right. This – whatever it is that’s making him sick – has been hanging around for weeks now, and Jensen already knows he’s lost weight from all the food he’s been feeding to the sewer system, despite his increased appetite.

The doctor asks all the usual questions and Jensen answers ‘no’ to all of them, and then he asks if Jensen has ever been tested for fertility.

Jensen is knocked sideways by the question and he sits on the examination table for God knows how long, shocked silent, before he manages to make his mouth work enough to say ‘no’.

He’s not stupid, he went to school, saw the numerous reports and studies about the small percentage of women who were exposed to something when they were pregnant that made their sons capable of getting pregnant, Jensen just never thought it would have affected him, a guy from a small town outside Dallas.

The doctor does a pregnancy test anyway and Jensen sits in a chair, completely numb, when the doctor tells him the test is positive.

Jensen is pregnant.

The baby’s Jared’s, of course, and Jensen doesn’t even know how to begin to tell him something this huge. This is going to change Jensen’s whole life, and Jared’s, too.

He writes email after email, detailing everything he’s going through, every moment of his pregnancy, and can’t find it in himself to send any of them. He creates a folder within his email account simply called ‘Jared’ and saves them all.

He doesn’t know why, doesn’t understand this need inside his own head, telling him to keep the pregnancy to himself, but deep down, he wonders if he’s just so terrified of the idea of being rejected that he’s willing to be a single father. Or worse, what if Jared comes home, tries to play happy family with Jensen and the baby, when it’s clear that that’s the last thing Jared wants?

Jensen doesn’t think he can take Jared resenting him or, God help him, resenting their baby.

So he keeps quiet.

_Just for now,_ he thinks, _I’ll tell him after the baby’s born._

Danneel steps up, because that’s what best friends do, and she takes on the role that Jared should be filling, taking Jensen to his hospital appointments, holds his hand and wipes his happy tears at the first sonogram, the second, and runs to the store in the middle of the night when Jensen craves pineapple milkshakes and Doritos.

Even without Jared, it’s surprisingly okay.

 

///

 

Eight months to the day since Jared flew out of his life, Jensen goes into labor and becomes the first man in the State of Texas to give birth, albeit by C-Section.

He takes pictures of his new daughter and uploads them to his computer. He writes an email to Jared and attaches a photo of the baby, looking so tiny lying cradled in Christian’s arms.

Jensen saves the email to the same folder as all the others and tells himself he’s doing the right thing.

He never hears from Jared again.

 

///

** Chapter 1 **

** Just over three and a half years later **

 

“Hey!” Jensen shouts, trying to make his voice carry to the second floor as he stands in the kitchen and puts the finishing touches to the lunch he’s making. “Get your little butt moving! Aunt Danni will be here any second!”

Just as he’s finished speaking, there’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs and then the kitchen door swings open. Jensen puts the sandwiches on the plate and turns to look at his daughter.

He sighs and leans one hip against the counter as he looks down at her. “You look like the _Color Kids_ threw up on you.”

Yeah, his daughter knows who the _Color Kids_ are, because Jensen is raising her right. On decent, Eighties cartoons, and not the meaningless, insane drivel they pretend is children’s TV nowadays.

Alright, so _Rainbow Brite_ isn’t exactly educational, but it’s the principle of the thing.

MJ Ackles giggles into her hands, amused by her father’s words, but Jensen’s really not joking.

She’s wearing bright blue Chuck Taylors, pink jean shorts and a green t-shirt with a Green Lantern logo that Jensen found on eBay six months ago and is still too big for her.

If he didn’t know Danneel would march MJ up to her room and make her change, Jensen would be sorely tempted to leave her as she is.

But, Danneel is nothing if not a slave to fashion, something she’s desperately trying to pass onto her niece, and it’s making Jensen just a little bit giddy that his best friend is failing so spectacularly. She’s three years old; she’s got plenty of time to worry about what she’s wearing when she’s a teenager.

Not that it’ll matter by that point, because Jensen will have already locked her in her room in order to prevent her from dating.

Putting the plates of sandwiches on the table with a bag of chips, Jensen turns MJ around and follows her back up to her room. He decides the shorts will work, and just switches the t-shirt for a plain white one and the Chucks for pink sandals. Looking at her mop of curly brown hair, Jensen just shakes his head and reaches for a brush, running it through the tangled tresses a few times and gathering it into a ponytail. He decides she’s ready, just as the front door opens.

“Hello!” Danneel’s voice floats through the house.

“Coffee in the kitchen!” Jensen calls down to her and turns back to his daughter. “Alright, Princess, you got everything you need?”

MJ looks up at him and blinks her huge hazel eyes in adorable confusion. Jensen smiles at her.

“Saturday, remember?”

Every Saturday – or at least, every Saturday that Danneel has free from the hospital – MJ spends the night with her aunt. It’s stupid and probably not really necessary, Jensen knows, but he likes the idea that MJ has a positive female role model in her life, and he tries to encourage the two of them spending time together as much as he can. Jensen doesn’t have a lot of female friends, and while his mother is great with MJ, his sister, Mackenzie, is too busy with college to spend as much time with her niece as she’d like.

Plus, Danneel says it’s good for Jensen to spend at least one night a week away from his daughter, even if he is just hanging with then guys and they constantly mock him for always having his phone on.

He’s a responsible parent, that’s all.

“Oh!” MJ beams, like she’s suddenly remembered why she isn’t at preschool today and she jumps up and down on the spot for a few seconds before she heads towards her bed. She picks up the stuffed rabbit that had been a gift from Chad on her last birthday and the copy of _The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe_ that Jensen’s been reading her before bed. “Ready!”

Jensen chuckles. “Lunch first, my little geek in the making. Come on.”

MJ bounces out of the room and Jensen can’t help but laugh at her enthusiasm as he follows.

Danneel’s sitting at the kitchen table when they make it downstairs and MJ climbs onto the chair facing her, smiling excitedly.

“Ready for our girly weekend, Molly-Mine?” Danneel asks as Jensen gets MJ a glass of apple juice from the refrigerator.

MJ nods eagerly. “Yeah! We’re gonna go to the park, aren’t we?”

Danneel fakes offence, her hand pressed against her chest. “Well, of course we are, baby girl! I only plan the very best girly weekends, after all, and everyone knows that going to the park is the most important thing about a girly weekend.”

Jensen snorts into his coffee. “Yeah, that’s until she hits thirteen and girly weekends involve sitting around eating cookie dough and gossiping about boys.”

MJ wrinkles her nose. “Ew. Boys are smelly.”

Jensen nods sagely. “Yes, they are MJ, and you just remember that until you’re all old and grey and I can stop worrying.”

Danneel rolls her eyes in a put upon way that makes her sound like she’s older than she is. “Just eat your sandwich, MJ, and ignore your silly daddy.” She turns back to Jensen with wide eyes. “So, speaking of gossiping about boys, guess who I saw doing the walk of shame from Chris’ apartment on my way over here?”

Jensen narrows his eyes in confusion. “Dan, Chris’ apartment is on the other side of town. You’d have to go completely out of your way to drive past his place.”

Danneel shrugs. “I do it every Saturday morning. There’s a distinct sort of pleasure in seeing what kind of groupie Chris picked up from his gig the night before. Plus, I had some errands to run before I came here, so it worked out in my favor.”

Jensen cocks his head to one side. “Chris didn’t have a gig last night.”

It was Steve’s dad’s birthday and he’d gone home to spend the weekend with his parents. Chris, who never liked to perform alone, had simply chosen not to perform their usual Friday night gig at a local club.

“That’s what makes this so much more interesting!” Danneel was practically vibrating in her chair with the need to tell Jensen who she saw. “If he’d had a gig, they could chalk it up to both of them being drunk and pretend it never happened.”

Jensen sits up straighter in his chair. “So it’s someone we know?”

“What’s a walk of shame?” MJ asks around a mouthful of chips and apple juice.

Jensen whirls on her. “If I ever catch you doing a walk of shame, MJ Ackles, we are going to have some serious words.”

“Jensen,” Danneel scolds. “She’s three years old. I seriously doubt she’ll be doing a walk of shame anytime soon.” Jensen glares at her and she holds her hands up in surrender. “Alright, she’ll never do it. Trust me; I’ll make sure she knows how uncouth it is. You know it’ll be me teaching all the birds and bees stuff anyway. You’d probably die of embarrassment the day she tells you she’s got her period.”

Jensen feels his face heat up, because he knows Danneel’s telling the truth. “If it wasn’t for MJ, I really would have ditched your ass years ago. Now tell me who you saw before I decide you’re unfit to look after my daughter.”

Her eyes glitter as she sits back in her chair, coffee mug cradled in one hand. “Chad,” she says simply, adding nothing more, merely waiting for Jensen’s reaction.

Jensen deflates a little. “Dan, Chris and Chad are friends; it’s not unusual for Chad to be in Chris’ house.”

“It is at ten o’clock in the morning,” Danneel points out. “Come on, Jensen, you know damn well that Chad doesn’t get out of bed before noon on a Saturday without a good reason.”

“And leaving Chris’ place is a good reason?”

Danneel shrugs again. “It is if he’s sneaking out. Like I said, walk of shame.”

Jensen groans and rubs at his temples. “If this makes everything weird, I’m going to kill them both.”

While Chris has been Jensen’s best friend since middle school, Chad was more of a recent edition to Jensen’s life. Six months after MJ’s birth, Danneel had set them up on a blind date, promising that they were perfect for each other.

Truthfully, Jensen thinks she was just trying to show him that there were people out there, other than MJ’s father that he could date.

Twenty minutes into the dinner at a small Italian place at the edge of town, Jensen knew that Chad wasn’t the guy for him, wasn’t even someone that he would be comfortable with just for one night. Sure, Chad’s a good looking guy – he’s fucking gorgeous, really – but he’s not really Jensen’s type. Too blonde, too short, not well-built enough.

Not MJ’s father.

Still, he found that he liked Chad’s company; the guy was funny as hell, if slightly crude in his jokes, but after six months of being surrounded by baby-friendly stuff, it was more than a welcome distraction for the tired father.

Despite not being relationship-material, Chad somehow managed to worm his way into Jensen’s life. Jensen loves his daughter, but every once in a while, he just likes to be able to unwind and kick back and remember that he’s still a good looking man in his early thirties. And Chad, with his cocky behavior, dirty mouth and his inability to remember any sort of personal boundary, is the best way to do that.

And now he was sort of as inextricable as Chris or Danneel. Enough that whatever this is that’s going on with him and Chris, they better sort it out fast, because Jensen’s refusing to lose either of them.

“This could be good for them,” Danneel mumbles around the edge of her coffee mug. “I mean, if they start dating, maybe Chris will settle down. Chad could be the one.”

Jensen cocks an eyebrow. “Really? Chris and Chad? You actually see them working out as a real couple?”

Danneel winces. “Maybe? If Chris is really, really stoned.” She deflates. “I don’t know; I just worry about Chris, okay? He keeps picking up all these random people from his gigs, using them for one night and then just throwing them away.”

“Dan, I don’t think any of those people care about being thrown away when it’s Christian Kane who’s doing the throwing.”

“But that’s exactly my point! They don’t want to be with Chris, they want to be with Christian Kane and it actually hurts me that he doesn’t see that.”

Jensen grins. “Aw, you’re so cute when you’re in mama bear mode. You just want to protect your boys!”

She scowls at him. “Don’t start with me, Ackles, or we’ll have that conversation about you and dating and three years and don’t you think it’s time you moved on?”

Jensen’s grin vanishes. “It’s not that simple.”

“No, what it is is not as hard as you’re making it seem.”

Jensen glances at MJ, and, seeing her engrossed in making a fort out of her chips, lowers his voice and leans across the table. “Okay, think about it, Dan. Not only am I a single father of a three year old, but I also gave birth to said three year old. There aren’t exactly many guys out there who want to date a guy who can...get knocked up,” he hissed. “You’ve seen all those smear campaigns by those religious freaks, who say it’s against nature. A lot of people agree with them.”

“Jen, it’s not like it’s stamped on your forehead. You don’t have to tell anyone. You could say that MJ is mine if you want.”

“And what happens if I fall for some guy? What if we fall in love and he moves in, and then he asks the inevitable question ‘when can we stop using protection?’ Am I supposed to lie then?”

Danneel looks away, staring into her coffee as Jensen sighs.

“This isn’t about Jared, okay?” he says with a sigh, falling back against his chair, the fight draining out of him, “I came to terms with the fact that I’ll never see him again a long time ago. Would I like to have someone to spend my life with? Of course I would. But I’m not going to lie to do it. I’d rather be alone than pretend to be something I’m not. Or pretend I’m not something I am, as the case may be.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” she says softly, her eyes sad. “I just worry about you. I worry about all my guys. You’re the kids I’ve yet to have.”

“Maybe we should all start worrying about you. You need someone in your life, too, you know. In fact, I think you need to start hanging out with other people. Female people, maybe then you’ll stop meddling in our lives.”

Danneel laughs. “Aw, I don’t need any other female people, I’ve got the best female in the world to hang out with right here, ain’t that right Miss Molly?”

“Yeah!” MJ agrees with a bounce.

Jensen sniggers. “Yeah, you wouldn’t know what to do with real women anyway. You’d just insult them and chase them all away.”

Danneel grins at him. “That’s why I have you and Chad.” She claps her hands and turns to MJ. “Alright, well are you ready to go hit that park?”

MJ scrambles off her chair without another word, heading for the hall closet to get her coat.

“Thanks for taking her,” Jensen says softly as he clears away the lunch dishes. It’s the same thing he says to her every Saturday Danneel comes to pick MJ up for their weekends together.

Danneel rolls her eyes. “Are you kidding me? I love spending time with her. It’s like having my own kid – except I can hand her back to you when I’ve had enough.”

“Wish I could do that,” he says with a sparkle in his eyes and they both try to pretend that he means it, even though they both know that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s no question that Jensen loves his daughter – he honestly doesn’t know what he would do if she wasn’t a part of his life. She’d come at exactly the right moment, when Jensen had needed something to distract him from the pain of missing Jared. And while MJ is practically the spitting image of her father, with her hazel eyes and dimples, that distraction worked for a while. But then, as MJ grew up, became a person instead of just an abstract idea in Jensen’s mind, he realized that she was more than that.

MJ is more than just a distraction, she’s Jensen’s whole world, the first person he thinks about when he wakes up in the morning and the last thing he thinks about before he goes to sleep and she’s the most amazing thing that Jensen has ever done.

However, he still likes to have the odd day to himself once in a while, which is why he’s glad he has people like Danneel and Chad and Chris and his parents, who can take MJ for a while and give Jensen a little bit of a break and it’s with a sad sort of eagerness that Jensen escorts the two girls to the front door.

“Alright, MJ, promise me you’ll be good for Aunt Danneel?”

MJ raises her right hand like a Boy Scout. “Promise, Daddy.”

“Cool, I’ll see you tomorrow night, then. Have fun, baby girl.” He crouches down and pulls her in close, hugging her tightly and kissing the top of her dark head.

“Okay, over-protective guy. You can let her go now,” Danneel laughs. “I promise I’m not going to run out of the country with her.”

Rising to his full height, Jensen gives her a mock glare before he kisses her cheek and opens the door for both of them. He watches with a fond smile as the two of them skip down the driveway to Danneel’s car and waits until Danneel has his daughter secure in her car seat before he waves a final time and closes the door.

With deep breath, Jensen heads to the kitchen and takes care of the dishes from their breakfast and lunch, washing them by hand and leaving them in the drainer to dry and then puts on a load of laundry to wash before he tells himself that he can’t put it off anymore and he heads up to his bedroom.

He feels weird, like he always does at this point, but he has to take what he can get. With a curious three year old in the house, Jensen doesn’t have a lot of time to himself. Even in the shower he often has to leave the door open to listen for MJ calling for him.

So he doesn’t have a lot of time to…indulge in the kinds of activities that most single guys Jensen’s age take for granted, so when he gets a rare couple of hours to himself, he knows he’s going to make the most of them.

Jensen’s already cupping himself through the thin sweatpants he’s wearing when he gets to his bedroom, his dick already half-hard with anticipation. He doesn’t remember the last time that he was able to indulge in anything more than a quick jerk-off session first thing in the morning – quick being the operative word.

He sheds his t-shirt as he locks the bedroom door behind him and steps out of his sweats before he crosses the room to the far side of the bed.

He crouches down as gracefully as he can while completely naked with a growing hard-on, but he finds the black box hidden under the bed fairly quickly and he drops it onto the mattress and climbs on after it.

He’s in the mood for something a little more fulfilling today, lying on his back and stroking his cock until he comes just isn’t going to cut it, so Jensen searches through the vibrators and dildos in his box until he finds what he’s looking for.

Taking out the fairly full tube of lube, Jensen slicks his fingers and kneels on the bed, reaching between his legs to slide one finger into his hole without any hesitation.

He opens himself up quickly, aiming for speed rather than drawing it out like he does sometimes. There’s something nagging at the back of his head, something about the guys and movies or Jensen doesn’t even know what, and if he’s right, he wants to have time to get ready and figure out what his plans actually are before they arrive.

Removing the three fingers he has inside his body, Jensen takes a deep breath as he reaches for the huge black dildo. The thing had been a gag gift from Jared for his twenty-seventh birthday along with a tube of lube and a note that said Jensen could always use it to remind him of Jared if they’d gone without sleeping together for a while.

In reality, Jared isn’t really as blessed as his gift had suggested to outside observers, but the dildo always manages to remind Jensen of Jared, and when he sinks down on it, he can’t help but close his eyes and imagine that it’s Jared cock he’s sinking onto. And when he starts to ride the fake cock, the wide, flat end braced against the bed, he thinks about Jared, remembers what he looked like when Jensen rode him, how he would throw his head back into the pillows, arch his back, thrust his hips up into Jensen as Jensen ground down on him.

Jensen’s phone starts ringing, lost somewhere on the floor in the pocket of his sweatpants, but it’s the default, generic ringtone, not anyone important, so Jensen ignores it, swiveling his hips on the dildo. He’s not even sure at this point that he could stop, even if it was Danneel’s ringtone he heard.

He fists his cock and pretends it’s Jared’s hand, swiping his thumb across the head as he speeds up his rhythm. He’s practically bouncing on the dildo, angling his hips so that the plastic thing hits his prostate with each practiced thrust. He lets himself be as loud as he wants as he feels his orgasm creeping up on him

Jensen reaches for the hand before his eyes but he hits nothing but air until he falls forward just enough to fist the fingers of his left hand in the tangled white sheet and he twists his wrist, the fake cock plunging in deeper with this new angle and it doesn’t take long after that.

Jensen comes with Jared’s name on his lips and Jared’s face behind his eyes and he lets himself pretend, just for a minute, that everything is the way it’s supposed to be.

Exhausted and more than a little depressed thanks to his fantasy, Jensen has time to pull the dildo from his ass before he topples over to one side and falls asleep, phone call forgotten.

 

///

 

_“Hey, this is Jensen Ackles. Sorry I’m not around to take your call, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. If this is a MJ-related emergency, please try Danneel, Chris or Chad. Thanks.”_

Jared snaps his phone closed as soon as he hears the beep. He doesn’t know who Chad is – or MJ for that matter, never mind why them having an emergency would lead to someone trying to contact Jensen – but he doesn’t leave a message. He doesn’t really know what to say after four years of no contact at all.

It wasn’t Jared’s plan to stop all contact with Jensen after he moved, in fact, Jared didn’t really have a plan at all, and even now he wonders what the hell he was thinking when he got on that plane. It’s not like it was a better job than he’d had in Richardson and nowhere near the opportunity he had made it seem, not to mention moving to a country where he couldn’t even speak the language was just fucking stupid.

Jared’s surprised he managed to last four weeks, never mind four years.

No, wait, he does know how he managed, his pride would never have let him admit that he was wrong, and so he stuck it out for four, long years, getting lonelier and more depressed with each passing day.

But, enough is enough and he’d finally handed in his two-week’s notice a month ago, packed up his apartment and told his mama he was coming home.

Home to Dallas, he’d explained gently when she’d starting going on about clearing out his old room for him until he could find a place of his own. She was disappointed, but not surprised. After all, as far as everyone he’d checked with knew, Jensen was still there.

There’s an announcement over the loud speaker and Jared’s Japanese still isn’t all that great – he can order a beer and food, but his skills don’t reach much beyond that – so he turns in a circle until he spots a screen to his right. The text says that the flight to Dallas-Fort Worth is now boarding, so Jared picks up his backpack, swings it over his shoulder and makes his way to the gate.

 

///

 

There’s a loud pounding filling the room and Jensen jerks awake, looking around with wide eyes, wondering what startled him awake and fighting the need to check on MJ, before he remembers he’s in his own damn bedroom and MJ is with Danneel. The black dildo and the rest of the box of toys are still on the bed with him and he blushes with embarrassment as he pushes them aside.

The pounding starts up again and Jensen realizes it’s someone knocking on his door.

“Yeah?” he calls, covering himself with the sheet even though he knows he turned the lock.

“Thank Christ.” Chad sounds relieved. “I was about to bust this door down if you didn’t answer me in the next twenty seconds.”

Jensen blinks. “Uh, what are you doing here, Chad?”

He can practically hear Chad rolling his eyes. “Poker, remember? Come on, Jen, the guys are setting up the table in the living room. Get your ass down here.”

Frowning, Jensen looks at his watch, his eyes almost popping out of his head when he sees that it’s almost seven o’clock.

“Um, sorry,” he mutters, “I, uh, I fell asleep.”

Chad chuckles and even through the door it sounds dirty. “Jensen Ackles, were you having a little alone time since the chicklet is out of the house?”

Jensen throws the dildo at the door. “That is none of your fucking business, Murray.”

“Want some help?” Chad leers and Jensen throws the tube of lube this time.

“Get the fuck out! I’ll be down in a second, I’m just gonna take a shower.”

“Make sure you get all those hard to reach places,” Chad cackles as he walks away before Jensen can throw anything else.

Jensen showers quickly, dressing in faded jeans and a green Henley and not bothering with shoes or socks. He puts the lid back on the box but leaves it on the bed, contemplating some more time to himself when the guys go home.

When he makes it downstairs, Chris has his whole living room rearranged. The coffee table and armchairs have been pushed back against the far wall and there’s a huge round table covered in green felt taking up the space they created, the chairs from the dining room surrounding it. The coffee table is covered in snack foods that Jensen can’t name and figures has something to do with Steve and there’s a cooler of beer next to Chris’ chair.

There are also more guys in the room than Jensen remembers inviting over and he has to think for a minute if Misha even knows how to play poker, but then the man sits himself down on the couch and Jensen figures he’s just here for the entertainment.

And anyway, Jensen’s more worried about two of the remaining four people around the table and he wonders how it’s possible that Chad and Chris have managed to get as far away from each other as they are and still be sitting at the same table. There are only two people between them, but to Jensen’s eyes, they’re wishing it was two States and he can feel how awkward the whole thing is before he’s even picked up his cards.

He catches Riley’s eyes over the top of Chad’s head when he sits down, but Jensen doesn’t have a valid excuse for the tension between his two friends so he simply shrugs his shoulders and tells Steve to pass him a beer. It’s not like he can tell anyone what he suspects went down between Chris and Chad the night before.

“Hope y’all are prepared to lose a lot of money tonight,” Chris says as he starts dealing the cards, his eyes on the table.

Riley forces a sigh. “Someone stop me when I hit a hundred. I lose any more than that, and Allie’s gonna withhold sex for weeks.”

“Whipped,” Steve snorts into his beer.

Riley cranes his neck to see over Chris and Steve’s heads. “Misha, buddy, back me up on this. One attached man to another.”

Misha simply looks back at him calmly. “Vickie finds it hard to concentrate if she doesn’t have at least two orgasms a day. I doubt very much she’d use something as necessary as sex as a form of punishment.”

Everyone stares at him.

“Seriously, where did we get him from?” Chad says dramatically and Jensen can’t help but laugh.

“I found him in the supply closet when I was still working out of the downtown office. I decided to keep him.”

It’s almost true, the only part Jensen leaves out of that story is that, when he’d found Misha, he had his face buried between the copy boy’s legs while his wife, Vickie, listened on speaker phone.

They have a weird relationship, as far as Jensen is concerned. Or maybe it’s just because their relationship is so different from anything Jensen has experienced, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t put up with sharing Jared with the copy boy.

Wait, not Jared. Not Jared specifically, anyway, or in any sort of context, because Jared isn’t his, so he doesn’t have a right to dictate who he will and won’t share Jared with.

Shit, that fantasy earlier had really messed with his head.

Riley slumps back in his chair. “It’s so hard being the most mature person in his group of misfits.”

“Hey,” Jensen argues, “single father over here. I think I rank pretty highly on that maturity scale.”

Riley shakes his head. “Single father by your own design. I have no sympathy for you.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jensen barks.

“You could have Jared back here in a second if you told him how you really feel,” Steve answers and Chris, Misha and Riley all nod in agreement and Jensen can’t really find anything to argue with.

He knows, deep down, that they’re right. One phone call or an email and Jared would have been on the first plane back to Texas, and even now, more than four years after Jared flew away, Jensen would like nothing more than to do just that.

But he still can’t make himself do it, because there’s still that lingering fear, that Jared will say ‘no’, that he’ll laugh at Jensen, tell him how pathetic he is for pining away for Jared for all these years. He could find out about MJ and tell Jensen that he wants nothing to do with her. They never even talked about kids after all, and for all Jensen knows, Jared doesn’t want any.

Then there’s Jensen’s new fear, the one that was born out of the woman down the street who had her kids taken away from her because her bastard of an ex-husband told the courts she was an unfit mother.

What is Jared did that? What if he decided that Jensen was unfit to look after his own daughter because he kept her existence a secret from her father?

He doesn’t think he could be like Cindy down the block, who just picked herself up and moved on. If he lost MJ, Jensen’s whole reason for living would be lost as well.

Of course, he can’t voice any of these fears out loud. Apart from Chad, all of these guys know Jared almost as well as Jensen does he knows they’ll all tell him how big of an idiot he is for even thinking that Jared would reject Jensen and his daughter, especially if he knows that daughter is his too.

And yet, Jensen still can’t make that fear go away.

Jensen looks at Chad, the only neutral party in the room, but the blond just shrugs. “Hey, man, I never met this Jared guy; I don’t know what he’s like. But will tell you this,” he says with narrowed eyes, “the way these guys talk about him, if you don’t do something about it, I might just fly to Tokyo and steal him away for my own damn self.”

Jensen watches in surprise as Chris flinches at Chad’s words, glaring across the table at the younger man like he thinks he has the right to decide who Chad does and doesn’t date.

Jensen throws a poker chip at Chad. “Like you could actually get on a plane and fly to Tokyo. You had to drive all the way from New York when you moved here because you’re so damn scared to get on an airplane.”

“I needed my car!” Chad squawks, indignant at being singled out.

“Can we please quit talking about our feelings and play some damn cards?” Steve gripes.

“Says the guy who’s never had a meaningful relationship in his life. Typical,” Misha pipes up from the couch. He’s looking up the skirt of one of MJ’s Barbies.

Steve points an accusing finger at Chris. “Hey, neither has he!”

Again Chris and Chad glance at each other uncomfortably across the table and Jensen makes a mental note to find out what the hell happened between them.

“If I cover everyone’s first stake can we act like a group of thirty-something men playing cards and not a bunch of teenage girls taking a Cosmo quiz?” Riley pleads.

Chad lets out another squawk. “I am not thirty-something!”

“You’re close enough that it sure as shit doesn’t matter,” Chris reminds him. He throws a five dollar chip into the center of the table. “I’m in.”

 

///

 

“Is he okay?”

Jensen takes a deep breath as he and Riley stare down at Chad, who passed out on the couch a couple hours ago and is now snoring softly. He’d produced a bottle of whiskey from somewhere – Jensen doesn’t want to think about where – not long into the night and proceeded to polish off the whole bottle by himself, getting completely wasted in the process.

Jensen knows he needs to do something. Whatever it is that’s going on with Chad and Chris, they need to sort themselves out, because avoiding each other when they are two of Jensen’s closest friends – not mention MJ’s uncles – just isn’t going to cut it.

Jensen will pull off his own arm before he’ll lose either of one of them as a friend.

Jensen shakes his head in answer to Riley's question. “I don’t…” he trails off with a sigh. “It’s not really my place to tell you, ya know? I figure Chad needs to either do that himself, or get over it before he gives himself alcohol poisoning.”

“Is this gonna fuck us up?” Riley asks, his voice soft in respect of Chad’s fitful slumber.

“Honestly? I have no idea.”

“Great,” Riley says, the sarcasm thick in his tone, “call me when the shit blows over. I’ll probably be the one standing behind the fan.”

Jensen chuckles. “Will do, man.”

Riley reaches for his jacket and watches Chad with soft eyes as he pulls it on. “You want me to take him home?”

Everyone else has left already, Chris escaping as soon as it was polite to do so, Steve and Misha disappearing not long after to somewhere Jensen really doesn’t want to think about, leaving Riley the only person willing to help Jensen clean up, since Chad was already passed out.

“Not sure what he’ll do if I leave him on his own,” Jensen answers carefully, imagining all sorts of scenarios where a drunken Chad calls Chris up in the middle of the night and professes his undying love, forcing Chris to flee underground to escape the awkwardness. “Just leave him there. I’ll get him sobered up in the morning and see if I can get anything out of him.”

“Alright, well, call me if you need anything,” Riley says despite his previous statement and Jensen can’t help but roll his eyes. He might have the craziest group of friends in the world, but they’re all loyal to a fault.

“Thanks, Riley.”

Jensen shows him to the door, waiting on the porch until the taillights of his Honda have disappeared around the corner at the end of the block before he goes back inside, locking up the front door and turning off all the lights.

Chad’s still out cold when Jensen picks up the last few remaining beer bottles and puts his living room back together, but he stirs slightly when Jensen takes off his shoes and takes his cellphone from the pocket of his jeans before covering him with one of MJ’s blankets.

“Jen?”

“’S alright,” Jensen soothes, flipping into full on Father-mode in the face of someone who needs taking care of, “just go back to sleep.”

Chad rolls over onto his side and buries his face in the pillow beneath his head. “Sorry. Fucked up the whole night.”

“No, you didn’t. You’re just a little…” Jensen frowns, lost for words. “Actually, Chad, I don’t know what you are right now.”

“Lost cause, most likely,” Chad mumbles, “glutton for punishment, lovesick fool, insert your cliché here.”

“Is this about Chris?” Chad blinks blue eyes up at him questioningly and Jensen shrugs. “Danneel saw you leaving Chris’ place this morning. We put two and two together and we’re waiting to find out if we came up with four or five.”

“If your question is ‘did he fuck me?’ then the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. If the question is ‘am I dating him?’ the answer is a depressing ‘fuck, no’,” Chad says miserably.

Jensen bats at Chad’s hip and makes him move over against the back of the couch before sitting down on the edge of the cushion. “What exactly happened?”

Chad rolls over onto his back and throws an arm across his eyes. “That’s just the thing, I don’t even really know. He called me last night, said he was bored and didn’t want to go to the bar and asked if I wanted to come over. My date had cancelled on me at the last minute and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I went. It wasn’t like we were even drinking, Jen. We played a few games of _Madden_ , watched _Captain America_ on Netflix, and then he just kisses me. Outta nowhere. The next thing I know, we’re in his bed and I’m pretty sure you can figure out the rest yourself.”

Jensen nods in understanding. “What happened this morning?”

Chad shrugs. “He woke around ten, told me he had some shit to do and would I mind letting myself out while he took a shower. It was like he didn’t even know me, like I was one of those skanks he picks up at the bar.”

“Wow,” Jensen breathes, stunned, “I never thought my best friend could be such a bastard.” Of course, he’s always known that Chris liked to play it loose when it came to sex and willing bodies. Jensen doesn’t even remember the last time Chris slept with someone more than once. Usually, he picked up eager strangers at whatever club or bar he was at, and fucked them in the bathroom or took them back to his place. Rarely did Chris even get their name.

But in all the years Jensen has known Christian Kane, he’s never once known the guy to try it with someone he called a friend, or someone he ran the risk of running into when their night together was over.

For Chris to risk it all for Chad, knowing he would never manage to make it more than two or three days without seeing the blond, makes Jensen wonder just what he was thinking taking that risk in the first place.

“You want me to talk to him?” Jensen has to hold his hands up in surrender when Chad lifts his arm to glare through squinted eyes. “Alright, alright, I won’t say a word.”

Chad snorts and drops his arm back over his eyes. “The last thing I want is for him to think I’m some kind of chicken shit who needs his friends to fight his battles for him.”

“You need to talk to him,” Jensen presses. “Misha and Steve might be the most oblivious people on the planet, but Riley knows that something’s up, and Danneel knows that you spent the night at his place. If you don’t talk to him, it’s just going to get awkward and I refuse to allow everything to get fucked up because the two of you can’t be in the same room as each other. I’m not losing either of you.”

With his arm still covering his eyes, Chad gropes with his free hand until he can pat Jensen’s cheek clumsily. “Aw, I love you, too, Jenny.”

“Fuck off,” Jensen gripes, batting the hand away, “I’m trying to be serious here.”

“Which is what makes it so funny.”

“You really like him, don’t you?” Jensen asks suddenly, almost desperate for a straight answer from the drunk man on his couch.

Chad sighs. “Jensen, I have had a shit ton to drink and I’m not really firing on all cylinders right now. Can we please talk about this some other time?”

Jensen gives in with a short nod and gets to his feet, taking the non-answer as a ‘yes’ anyway. “You want me to call you a cab or are you okay here?”

Chad pulls the blanket over his head. “I’m scared that if I get up, I’ll hurl, and believe me, whiskey coming up is so much more unpleasant than it is when it’s going down.”

Jensen scrapes his fingers through Chad’s hair. “Alright, call me if you need anything.”

Chad’s already snoring again by the time Jensen makes it to the hallway, turning out all the lights as he goes and shoving Chad’s cellphone into the drawer of the dresser. He climbs the stairs wearily, his mind spinning with all the different ways this thing with Chris and Chad could go so very wrong and he stumbles over the black dildo he threw at the door earlier.

He sighs as he bends down to pick it up, as well as the bottle of lube. He tosses the bottle on the bed and takes the dildo to the bathroom with him, washing it off in the sink after he gets himself ready for bed.

With a sigh, he puts the box of toys away, really not comfortable with even thinking about having some time to himself with Chad right downstairs. He’s not even a little bit skeptical that Chad won’t offer to lend him a hand again if he hears Jensen jerking off.

With the box safely hidden away from the eyes of his three-year-old, Jensen strips out of his jeans and Henley, tossing them over the chair that sits in the corner of the room, and heads for the bed in nothing but his boxers.

Just as he’s pulling back the sheets, Jensen’s eyes catch sight of the sweatpants he’d been wearing earlier and he’s suddenly reminded of the phone call he’d missed.

Fishing the phone out of his pocket, Jensen checks his missed calls list and has to frown at the Out of Area message he gets when he tries to check the number. When he listens to the message, all he can hear is a mad rush of noise for two seconds before the line goes dead.

With a shrug, Jensen plugs the phone into the charger and goes to bed.

 

///

** Chapter 2 **

Jensen rises early the next morning and lies in bed, staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, before he realizes that this is one of those Sundays when his beautiful, crazy as all hell daughter won’t be running into his room and tackling him like she’s trying to make sure he won’t be able to give her any brothers or sisters at some point in the future.

He gets up and pulls on some comfortable clothes before he goes to his study to get some work done, allowing Chad a few more hours of sleep before he heads to the living room to disturb him.

He’s a quarter of the way through some stupid fucking manuscript about a coin that’s the center of all life on Earth, that Jensen will _not_ be telling his publishing house to buy, when he hears the sound of a car pulling into his driveway. Looking out the window, he’s just in time to see Danneel’s head disappear into the back of her car and he hurries down the stairs before either MJ or her aunt become loud enough to wake his guest.

“This is a no loud noises area,” he hisses at them as they climb the porch steps.

Danneel stops in her tracks and cocks her head. “What?”

Jensen jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Chad’s asleep on the couch. It’s a really long story that I do not want to get into with certain people listening in.” He grins down at MJ who just beams back at him, oblivious.

“Right,” Danneel says slowly, like she’s wondering if Jensen’s had his coffee yet. He hasn’t, but that’s not the point.

“So, what are you doing here so early anyway?” Jensen asks as he picks MJ up in his arms and kissing her in greeting. She giggles and hides her face in his neck.

“Right, I know I’m supposed to have her all day,” Danneel says, her voice full of apology, “but I got a call from work. There’s this huge pile up on the highway, couple buses and cars involved. I think it was a jack-knifed semi. Anyway, all hands on deck, apparently, so I’ve gotta go in.”

“Ah, the exciting life of an ER nurse,” Jensen grins at her. “You want me to wake Chad?”

Chad and Danneel are nurses at the local hospital, Chad transferring in from New York a few years ago. They became fast friends, much to Jensen’s surprise, and he often wonders if Danneel would have gone after Chad herself instead of setting him up with Jensen if it wasn’t for the fact that they worked together. Chad makes no secret of the fact that he swings both ways.

Danneel cranes her neck to see past Jensen and Jensen knows that the only thing she can see of Chad from this angle is his feet hanging off the end of the couch.

“No,” MJ’s aunt says finally, “I’ll just tell them I couldn’t find him.” She locks eyes with Jensen. “I’m guessing this is pretty bad?”

“Could be irreparable if we don’t do something to fix it.”

She nods sternly. “I’ll call during the week and we’ll come up with a plan.” In a flash, her serious expression vanishes, replaced by a blinding grin and she turns her attention to MJ. “I’m so sorry we have to cut our day short, Molly-Mine, but Aunt Danni has to go save some lives. I promise, next week, I’ll pick you up from preschool and we’ll go feed the ducks, okay? Just you and me.”

“Okay!” MJ enthuses, reaching forward in Jensen’s arms to hug her aunt goodbye.

“Later, Jen!” the nurse shouts as she bounces down the steps and back to her car and Jensen and MJ stand on the porch and wave until she’s out of sight.

“Promise me you’re gonna be real quiet, MJ?” Jensen asks his daughter as he closes the door behind them and carries MJ to the kitchen.

“Is Uncle Chad sick?” she asks, squirming in her father’s arms until she can see Chad through the pass.

“He, uh, he was just feeling a little bit lonely last night, so he asked if he could stay and keep me company,” Jensen explains lamely.

MJ starts wiggling again, twisting in Jensen’s arms until he sets her down and he has to watch as she scampers off towards the living room.

“MJ!” he hisses, but she pays him no mind, just stands in front of the couch and stares at Chad’s sleeping form before she turns on her heel and heads for her toy box under the window, rummaging through the contents until she comes up with a soft brown teddy bear that was – ironically – a gift from Chris not very long ago.

MJ makes her way quietly back to Chad and, with such a serious expression that Jensen has to force himself not to laugh, tucks the bear underneath Chad’s chin.

“So you won’t be lonely,” she whispers, pressing a soft kiss to Chad’s cheek.

Jensen smiles at her, pride and love making his eyes fill up.

“You are one of a kind, MJ,” he tells her sweetly, “one of a kind.”

 

///

 

“Asshole,” Jared grumbles at the back of the cab as it speeds off down the street. The driver had charged him what he’s sure is an exorbitant rate to get him to here from the airport and then didn’t even bother to help him get his bags from the trunk.

He’s pretty sure that his four years in Tokyo didn’t turn Texas into some fucking manner-less waste land, but so far, he’s not seeing anything that disproves that, but that could be because he’s sleep deprived from his flight that was delayed for seven fucking hours, and so hungry he’s about to start gnawing on his own arm, so Jared just puts it all into a little box in his mind to deal with later and lugs all his bags up onto the porch.

He takes a moment to just stand there and wonder if this is such a good idea.

When he’d made the decision to leave Tokyo, it had come on the heels of finding a photo of Jensen that had fallen down behind his nightstand and he’d planned nothing more than seeing Jensen again.

He doesn’t even have anywhere to stay and he has a moment to bask in the utter terror of wondering if Jensen’s met someone new before he bites the bullet and rings the doorbell.

Jared has less than fifteen seconds to panic on the porch before the front door is swinging open and Jared is staring at…an empty space.

“Uh, hello?” he asks, leaning forward slightly to see around the jamb. “Jensen?”

“’Lo,” says a tiny voice and Jared follows the sound, looking down into the face of one of the most adorable children he’s ever seen.

Jared stumbles back a step, clearly confused. “Uh, sorry, sweetheart, I think I’ve got the wrong house.” He’s honestly confused. It wasn’t like he’d ran this idea past anyone that he was heading back to Richardson – back to Jensen – but he’s pretty sure that no one mentioned anything about Jensen moving.

Then again, Jared hasn’t exactly kept in contact with many people who don’t have the same last name as he does.

“You want my Daddy?” the little girl asks and Jared panics again, wondering what some stranger’s going to think of him standing on the porch and staring at his daughter.

“Uh, no, that’s okay, I’m just gonna-”

“MJ!” a harsh whisper cuts him off and Jared looks back into the hallway. “What have I told you about answering the door on your own?”

The little girl turns and buries her face in her father’s leg and Jared looks up to find his gaze met with a frighteningly familiar one.

“Jared?” Jensen gasps, surprise and astonishment clear in his tone.

Suddenly nervous, Jared scratches at the back of his neck. “Hey, Jensen. Uh, surprise?”

Although, looking at the little girl who’s looking back at him with wide hazel eyes, Jared supposes that the surprise is on him.

“What…um, what are you doing here?” Jensen asks, his voice full of something Jared can’t quite figure out – Guilt? Nervousness? Something else? – as his left hand settles on the child’s brown hair.

“I just got back. Literally.” Jared waves a hand at his pile of luggage and watches as Jensen’s green eyes grow wide with surprise.

“You came straight here?”

Jared allows himself a shrug at that. “Where else would I go? You always told me that if I came back, I’d have a place to stay.” Jared trails off in embarrassment, because, of course, that just sounds completely ridiculous now, in the face of Jensen and his…fuck, his daughter.

But he can remember the conversation like it was yesterday, lying in Jensen’s bed, both of them naked and sweaty, and Jensen making the offer.

_“You’ll always have a home here, Jay. Doesn’t matter how long you’re gone, as long as I’m here, you’ll always have a place to stay.”_

Of course, that was before Jared cut off all contact for four years and Jensen went out and found himself a little girl to call his own.

This was a very bad idea. Too much time has passed, too many things have changed and Jared feels like a complete idiot for expecting everything to be exactly how he left it.

_The world doesn’t revolve around you, Padalecki,_ an inner voice yells at him. His inner voice sounds surprisingly like his mom. _Of course Jensen moved on without you. You left. You can’t really be that naïve to think that he would be waiting for you after all this time?_

And the really crap thing is, that, yeah, somewhere in the back of his mind, Jared was sort of counting on Jensen just…taking him back. He’d been banking on it even, and now he’s floundering.

Jensen nods absently, like it’s enough an explanation, but he’s still got that nervous look in his eyes as he steps back, taking the girl with him, and watches as Jared drags his things inside.

“You couldn’t have called first? Let me have some sort of warning?” Jensen asks incredulously.

“I tried, but you didn’t answer,” Jared tries lamely. “Then I figured, maybe it would be nice to surprise you.” It sounds pathetic and Jared knows it.

“A surprise would have been you coming back after a week, a month. It’s been four years, Jared. That isn’t a surprise, that’s…that’s time travel.”

Jared nods sadly. He feels…he doesn’t know what he feels. Rejected, maybe, but he hasn’t actually put anything out there for Jensen to reject yet.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out finally, “I…uh, I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I just…got on the first flight to Texas and…” he spreads his arms wide, “here I am.” He looks down at the little girl and gives her a hesitant smile. “I’m sorry…I guess I just didn’t think about what sort of impact that would have on your life.”

Jensen lets out a deep, almost weary sigh. “You never did think about me, why change the habit of a lifetime?”

He steps back, taking the little girl with him, and Jared ducks his head, his cheeks flaming once again, as he closes the front door behind him. He supposes, from Jensen’s perspective, that’s exactly how everything Jared did would look.

Once Jared’s got his suitcases settled awkwardly in the hallway, Jensen leads them to the kitchen, the little girl – who’s name Jared still doesn’t know – holding on to Jensen’s jeans like Jared’s going to run away with her.

“So, why did you come back, Jared?” Jensen asks as he switches on the coffee machine.

Jared isn’t expecting the question, not right off the bat, anyway, and Jared suddenly doesn’t want to tell Jensen that he came back for him. In light of the recent discovery of the mini-Jensen still standing in front of him, Jared doesn’t know if it would be a welcome revelation.

“Uh, they decided they didn’t need me anymore and cancelled my contract. So I figured I’d come back here and see if my old job’s still there.”

Jensen gives him an incredulous look. “It’s been four years, Jared. They couldn’t have figured that out before now?”

“I know, but they always told me that they’d take me back if I ever wanted to come home, you know? Might as well give it a shot.”

“Right,” Jensen says with another nod.

“Daddy.” The little girl is pulling at Jensen’s pant leg and if Jared still needed confirmation of who the child is, then he certainly doesn’t anymore.

Jensen has a daughter.

Jared doesn’t really know what to do with that information. Since the second the front door opened to reveal a child, Jared feels like he’s entered a parallel universe.

Jensen hums distractedly and Jared can see that he has to practically tear his eyes away to look down at her. “What?”

“Who’s that?” she points to Jared with something like concern in her eyes, like she doesn’t know if she should be afraid of him or not. At 6’4, Jared can understand her being wary of him.

“Oh, this is my friend, Jared. You’ve heard us talk about Jared before, right, baby?”

Slowly, she nods, like she’s trying to dig out the information that’s been stored away in her head, but she doesn’t seem to like Jared any better at the news that her father knows him.

“Jared, this is M-MJ.” Jensen stammers over the words, like he wants to add something to the end of her name, but to Jared it’s already extremely obvious that MJ is Jensen’s daughter, and Jared’s really hoping that Jensen didn’t name his daughter after a comic book character.

“It’s very nice to meet you, MJ” Jared says, trying to be polite to a…what? Two year old? He has no experience with kids of any kind. He’s barely spent any time with his brother’s kids since they were born, and now he’s spending more time with Jensen’s daughter than he really wants to.

This was all such a huge mistake.

“Uh, MJ, why don’t you go up to your room and change into your play clothes?” Jensen phrases it like a question, but he can hear that underlying parental tone that gives it away as an order.

“Why?” MJ pouts, looking up at him with huge eyes.

Jensen sighs. “Because I’m not spending another afternoon trying to get grass and mud stains out of another dress because you’ve decided to go snail hunting in the garden again.”

She gasps and bounces on the toes of her tiny pink sandals. “Oh! Can I?!”

“No,” Jensen huffs, “now please go up and change.”

MJ pouts again, but does as she’s told, disappearing up the stairs.

“I have got to get Danneel to stop buying her those frilly dresses. She’ll never learn.” Jensen almost sounds like he’s talking to himself as he walks away to the breakfast bar and Jared doesn’t really know what to do but follow after him like a lost puppy.

“I didn’t know about-” he starts, but then he cuts himself off when he glances through the pass that opens out onto the living room and his eyes land on a figure on the couch.

He doesn’t know the man who’s sleeping there, curled around some sort of stuffed animal and one arm hanging over the edge, but it’s obvious that he’s comfortable enough in this house to fall asleep on the couch.

Something Jared himself has done a thousand times, and it hurts something deep in his chest to know that there’s someone else there now, almost as if Jensen has replaced him in every way possible.

He really needs to figure something out before too long. He doesn’t know how long he can live in Jensen’s house now that he knows he’s really not a part of Jensen’s life anymore.

Not that Jensen has said that he can stay yet. And there he is, counting chickens when he still has eggs. That’s what got him into this mess in the first place.

Jensen comes to stand next to him and follows his eyes, giving a snort of amusement. “Shit, forgot about him.”

He leaves Jared standing in the middle of the kitchen and hurries to the other room, looming over the man on the couch and holding his nose closed.

The guy flails, batting at Jensen’s arms as he gasps for breath and sits up. “You fucking, evil, demented son of a bitch!” he yells loudly. “What the actual fuck, Jensen?!”

Jared winces and casts a glance at the stairs, concerned about MJ and all the cursing.

“How hung over are you?” Jensen asks, completely serious, and the guy blinks.

“Surprisingly, I’m not that bad considering what I drank last night.”

“Good, take MJ for a couple hours for me?”

The guy frowns. “Take her where? Why is she here, anyway? I thought it was girl’s day.”

“Danni got called into the hospital, pile up on the highway,” Jensen explains. “And I don’t really care where to take her, the park, or your place. Hey, take her to Chris’ and use her as an excuse to actually talk to him. Tell him you’re too hung over to look after her alone.”

The guy sits up. “Okay, sure, whatever you need, just one question.”

Jensen sighs, put upon. “What?”

“Why?”

Jared watches as Jensen leans forward to whisper in the guy’s ear, then the stranger’s eyes lock on Jared, shock and understanding sparkling in the blue gaze.

The guy chuckles. “Aw, can’t I just stay here and watch this train wreck in the making? I’ll make popcorn.”

Jensen smacks him upside the head. “No, Chad.”

Jared frowns. He’s missing some huge part of this conversation, but he doesn’t think that either of them are going to explain it to him.

Chad – apparently – grumbles, but he still gets up and heads for the downstairs bathroom. “Where’s my cellphone?!” he calls through the closed door.

Standing in the kitchen doorway, Jensen frowns, then his eyebrows rise in understanding. “Oh.”

Jared watches as he heads for the little table that he and Jensen bought together at a thrift store downtown when Jensen first moved into this place, and it gives Jared a small measure of comfort that there are some things that are still the same.

He opens one of the tiny drawers and pulls out a white iPhone, tapping at the screen until it comes alive. “I took it off him when he passed out last night,” Jensen says, like Jared needs an explanation. “Didn’t want him making an ass of himself with a drunk dial. That really would have screwed us all up.”

“Is Chad your…” Jared can’t finish the sentence, but he needs an answer. He needs to know that there’s still a chance for him, however slim. If he decides to go for it, of course. “Are you two…?” Jesus, he apparently gave up on the English language as well as Japanese.

Jensen blinks at him for a few seconds, like he doesn’t understand what Jared is asking and then it clicks and he laughs. “Me and Chad? God, no. I mean, that’s how we met, blind date, but, no. No, we’re just friends.”

“Well?” Chad asks when he comes back into the room, disrupting the tension that has fallen over the two of them, and Jared doesn’t know if he’s grateful for it, or annoyed by the intrusion.

Jensen tosses him the phone. “No missed calls, but you’ve got a text and a few emails.”

They wait, Jensen with a weird, almost expectant look on his face, as Chad scrolls through his messages.

“’We need to talk’,” he says, clearly reading from the screen. “Not in front of the squirt, you fucker.” Chad sticks his head out through the pass. “Mojo! Come on, we’re gonna see Uncle Chris!”

There are tiny footsteps on the stairs and then MJ is standing on the other side of the pass in a hideously mismatched outfit.

Jensen rolls his eyes. “I swear, with fashion sense like that, you definitely take after your-” he cuts himself off with snap, his teeth clicking and a blush stealing across his face.

Jared doesn’t need him to finish the sentence; he can hear the unspoken word loud and clear.

Mother. Mom. Some variation thereof.

Chad’s laughter is loud. “Oh, this is gonna be fucking awesome. I can’t wait to see the fireworks.”

MJ gasps in tiny, little girl outrage. “Uncle Chad! That’s a bad word! You have to put a dollar in the cuss jar!”

Chad sweeps her into his arms. “How about, I put enough money in that jar to cover your entire college tuition and in return, I get to cuss and swear as much as I want as long you don’t repeat any of it?”

“No,” she glares adorably and Jared can’t help the smile that cracks his face. She’s definitely Jensen’s daughter.

Chad pauses, considering. “Enough for three days in Disneyland?”

“Oh, God,” Jensen groans, burying his face in his hands.

MJ lights up. “Yeah!”

“Alright, but you can’t yell at me for cussing anymore, okay? Uncle Chris and Aunt Danni are still fair game, though, so feel free to yell at them.”

“You are a bad influence on my daughter, Chad Murray,” Jensen scolds. “You’re not spending time with her anymore.”

Chad shrugs and moves to set MJ back on her feet.

“No,” Jensen shouts. “Just, bring her back in time for dinner. I don’t want her eating anything she finds at Chris’.”

“Last time I checked, all he had in his freezer was a bottle of vodka, so I don’t think she’s in much danger of drinking that.” Chad shifts MJ in his arms and leans her out towards Jensen. “Alright, Mojo, say goodbye to Daddy and then we can blow this Popsicle stand.”

“Popsicles?!” MJ screeches in delight.

“Fine, we’ll stop off and get popsicles before we get there,” Chad promises.

“Be good, MJ,” Jensen advises as he presses a kiss to his daughter’s nose, then her lips. She giggles and throws her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

Jared’s heart breaks a little at the sight, it’s something that he always wanted, a family with Jensen and now it looks like he’ll never have that.

He waits until the front door has closed behind the giggling pair and lets himself release the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I didn’t know,” he says honestly. “If I’d known, I…” he doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. He would have what? Stayed in Tokyo alone and miserable?

Yes, probably.

Jensen leans against the kitchen counter and hangs his head, sort of deflating before Jared’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Jared. I should have told you, I know I should have told you. I tried, though, you have to know how hard I tried, but I just…couldn’t find the words. You wouldn’t believe the number of emails I started and deleted, how many times I picked up the phone and dialed your number. I just…” he trails off with a shake of his head, “couldn’t find the words.”

“Where’s her mom?” Jared asks, because it’s the most important question for him right now. A child means that Jensen – who always claimed to be gayer than Christmas – slept with a woman and knocked her up at some point in the last four years. Jared would really like to know if that woman is still in the picture somewhere.

He has a wild moment when he thinks that MJ’s mother could be Danneel, but then he remembers the ‘Aunt Danni’ that Chad was throwing around, and decides she’s not in the running.

“Mom…?” Jensen looks up at him with confused eyes and then he blinks, like he suddenly understands something. “Oh, no…there’s no…it’s just me and MJ…it’s just us.”

What? Jared doesn’t get it. What kind of a woman runs out and leaves her child? Did Jensen even know her before they slept together? He tries to figure out how old MJ is, decides she can’t be more than two or three, and he wonders if she was the result of some drunken fuck. Maybe Jensen got drunk one night after Jared left and this is what happened. Maybe she was some poor college student, too broke or focused on her schooling to raise a baby and so gave custody to Jensen.

It’s a good theory, one that Jared could accept, but it doesn’t look like Jensen’s going to elaborate on it as he turns his attention to the coffee pot and starts pouring them each a cup.

“Are you home for good?” Jensen asks, his back still to Jared, shoulders tense.

Jared leans against the countertop and crosses his arms over his chest. “Yeah.” He frowns because – as self-centered as it seems – he was expecting Jensen to be happy that he was home for good, was counting on it even, but now he realizes how stupid that was.

Of course Jensen’s moved on, it’s been four years, it was crazy to just expect him to be waiting for Jared like some war bride whose husband was off fighting overseas.

He doesn’t even know why he expected Jensen to be alone and mourning. Because that’s what Jared himself was doing? He shakes his head again, because, at the end of the day, it was his own damn fault. No one forced him to stay away for so long, nothing but his pride anyway.

He wonders if Jensen even thought about him in the last four years, wonders if Jensen even had _time_ to think about him, what with a baby to take care of twenty-four-seven.

“I’m sorry, I should have…” Jared shrugs his shoulders because he doesn’t know how to continue the sentence. “Talked to you first, I guess. Made sure that you’d want me to come here.” He barks out a laugh. “God, I can’t believe how self-centered I’ve been.”

The whole point of Jared leaving – well, of Jared telling Jensen he was leaving – was to get Jensen to admit to any feelings he had for Jared. Everyone said it – Chris, Riley, Danneel – they all said that Jensen was in love with him and just waiting for Jared to make the first move.

But Jared had been too much of a coward, too scared of getting his heart broken, so he’d hatched this stupid scheme to force Jensen’s feelings out into the open.

However, Jensen had remained embarrassingly silent and Jared’ pride had refused to let him come home with his tail between his legs like the loser he was.

Well, four years was enough. If he was a loser – if he’d lost Jensen – then Jared was just going to have to deal with it. If Tokyo had taught him anything, it was that his life was better when Jensen was a part of it, no matter what shape that part might take.

Jensen laughs, suddenly, but there isn’t much joy in it. “Yeah, it doesn’t seem like you put a lot of thought into this plan.” He then his shakes his head, like he’s clearing his thoughts. “Why did you come here?”

It’s not the accusation that Jared was expecting. Jensen doesn’t want a long list of how Jared thought about him every minute of every day he was in Japan, that’s not what the question means.

Jared knows him well enough to know that Jensen just wants to know why Jared came to his house first, instead of going somewhere else.

“Megan got a job in California a while ago,” he tells Jensen, talking about his younger sister, who had followed him here from San Antonio after college. “And I kinda lost track of most of my friends when I moved.”

Jensen looks at him and gives him a slow nod, but his face is screwed up like he just tasted something bitter and Jared replays his words in his mind, cringes when he realizes how Jensen must have heard them.

“No, no, that’s not…that’s not what I meant,” he stammers. “Of course I wanted to see you first, there’s no one else I would even think of seeing first, I just said that at the door, didn’t I? But I…”

Jensen straightens up from his lean. “But what?”

Jared spreads his arms wide, encompassing everything. “But I was naïve to think you’d just be waiting for me to come home. It was selfish and thoughtless and egotistical and I’m sorry, man.”

Jensen looks like he wants to say something but he doesn’t, turning away instead to hand Jared his coffee. “Do you have somewhere to stay?” he asks finally and Jared shakes his head.

“No, like I said, I came straight here.” Jared smiles as he looks down at his coffee, just the right amount of cream and when he tastes it, the sugar is just right, too, and it makes his heart a little lighter to know that Jensen still remembers.

Jensen nods absentmindedly. “The spare room is MJ’s now. All I have is the couch.”

“It’s only for a couple days, just until I find somewhere,” Jared says urgently, “but I can go to a hotel if it’s too much trouble. Or if your friend needs it.”

“Friend?” Jensen frowns and then he rolls his eyes. “You mean Chad? Nah, he was just staying here ‘cause he had too much to drink. We have a poker night last night, and he’s…kinda in the in middle of something. With Chris, actually. I think. It’s all very new and weird right now.”

Jared sniggers. “I don’t think I want to get into the middle of it.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Jensen agrees. “But, yeah, the couch is yours, as long as you don’t mind being woken up ridiculously early by a three year old who wants to watch her _My Little Pony_ DVD’s.”

The offer of the couch isn’t really a surprise. Of course Jensen’s not going to allow Jared to sleep in his bed, how would he explain that to MJ? But that doesn’t make knowing that he’s been relegated to the same position as someone Jared hasn’t even officially met yet any easier to swallow.

“It’ll only be for a few days,” Jared promises, already planning on digging his laptop out of his carry-on bag to start looking at apartment listings. He’s got some savings – a lot of savings, actually. It’s not like there was much he could do in Tokyo, considering he didn’t have many friends to hang out with and he never took vacations.

“No rush,” Jensen assures him with a tight smile and Jared suppresses a sigh.

The sooner he finds somewhere, the better.

 

///

 

_“Did you tell him?”_ Danneel’s voice is static-y and hollow through the speaker phone they’re using, but Jensen can still hear the slight hint of desperation that colors her tone and he lets out a dry chuckle.

“Fuck, no.”

_“Why the fuck not?”_ Chris asks and Chad grunts in agreement.

When Chris had dropped MJ off just before dinner, Jensen knew he’d only volunteered so that he could confirm Chad’s story. He’d be happier about Chris and Chad having an actual conversation with words actually directed at each other if it wasn’t for Chris trying his damned hardest to get MJ’s full name out in front of Jared.

Jensen almost had to kick the guy out the front door to get him to leave, but if he’d known Chris had Chad and Danneel waiting at his place to gang up on Jensen through the phone lines, he might have been tempted to keep him around.

Tied and gagged in the basement, of course.

At least they’d waited until they knew MJ was in bed before they ambushed him with a phone call that Jensen took upstairs in his room, away from Jared’s oversensitive ears.

“I don’t know what to say,” he answers Chris’ question honestly.

_“Uh, ‘hey, Jared, this is your kid’ might be a good place to start,”_ Chad deadpans.

Jensen bites his lip and doesn’t answer.

_“Jensen?”_ Chris calls when he stays silent and he grunts to let the three of them know he’s still there, but he still doesn’t speak.

_“What are you so afraid of?”_ Danneel whispers softly and Jensen feels his heart clench.

“What if he doesn’t want to know her? He never talked about kids, not once in all the years I’ve known him.”

He can almost hear the eye roll Chris is giving him. _“Jensen, he didn’t even know you could have kids._ You _didn’t know you could have kids until you got pregnant.”_

“Yeah, I know, but there was always adoption. Or surrogacy. I mean, come on, Chris, he was there the day you and I were talking about what options you would have if you decided to settle down with a guy. He didn’t even comment.”

There’s an awkward silence from the other end of the line and someone clears their throat uncomfortably, and it’s only then that he realizes what the implications of his words could mean for Chris and Chad.

“You two need to talk,” he mumbles through gritted teeth, hoping neither of them hear him.

_“Jensen, you can’t keep living in this…limbo.”_ That’s Chad’s voice and it’s the first time Jensen’s heard him talk about what’s so painfully obvious to Danneel and Chris and Steve and anyone else who knew him before Jared left.

That he’s still waiting for Jared to come and declare his undying love and devotion.

_“If you tell him, and he rejects both of you,”_ Chris continues, _“then at least you’ll know he’s not worth it and you’ll be able to finally start moving on.”_

“He’s gonna be so mad,” Jensen points out, he’s voice uneven with emotion. “What if he hates me?”

_“Maybe he will,”_ Danneel agrees, _“but at least you’ll have an answer.”_

 

///

 

_“What if he hates me?”_

Jared pauses at the door to Jensen’s bedroom with his hand raised to knock just as the words filter through the wood. Jensen’s voice sounds rough and desperate in the quietness of the house. He doesn’t know who Jensen is talking to, but the conversation sounds too close and intimate to be just anyone and that sick thread of jealousy works through Jared’s body again.

He turns on his heel and stalks back down to the living room, not even bothering to hover outside of the door that used to lead to the spare room, that’s now covered in sparkly pink things, with a little girl’s name etched carefully in three inch high letters that he doesn’t even stop to read.

When he gets back to the living room, he turns the TV on, flicking to some action movie he’s pretty sure he’s seen a hundred times and settles back on the couch beneath the blanket Jensen had given to him.

It’s bright purple, and only serves to remind Jared of just how much Jensen’s life has changed in the last four years while his has stayed the same.

Jensen’s upstairs in his room having a private, intimate phone call with someone while Jared sits on his couch and stews in his jealousy.

Fuck, he’s pathetic.

He’s trying to figure out how much of a hassle it would be to move back to San Antonio or to California with his sister when he hears footsteps on the stairs, and he rests his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes and feigning sleep.

“Jared?” Jensen calls, his voice low, almost whispered. Jared can sense him standing in front of the couch, looking down on his supposedly sleeping form.

“Shit,” he curses softly and Jared’s eyes twitch with the need to look up at him. He knows Jensen is probably running a hand over the top of his head and down his face, the same thing he always does when he’s nervous or upset.

Standing in the middle of the living room on the wrong side of late, Jared thinks it’s probably both.

He’s surprised, though, when he feels a hand in his hair, more so when Jensen presses his lips to Jared’s forehead.

“I never meant to lie to you, Jared. I just hope you can forgive me.”

He doesn’t say anything more, just turns off the TV and the lamp next to the couch before he goes back upstairs, and Jared waits until he hears the sound of his bedroom door closing before he opens his eyes.

He doesn’t know what just happened, but this sounds like a lot more than just Jensen being in a new relationship.

 

///

** Chapter 3 **

 

“No!”

Jared jerks awake at the sound and thrashes in his blankets a little until he gets himself untangled. Five nights, and he’s still not used to sleeping on the small-assed couch.

“Sebastian, I don’t work out of the office anymore, you know that.”

Following the sound of Jensen’s voice, Jared looks through the pass to see the man pacing the length of the kitchen, cellphone pressed tight to his ear and his face pinched in frustration.

“Fuck you, Sebastian, I pull my own damn weight, and it’s not up to you to tell me where and how I spend my hours working for this company,” Jensen spits. “Unless you got promoted to senior partner when I wasn’t looking, it’s not any of your business what I do on the company’s time.”

Jared stands up. He’s taken to wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts when he goes to sleep after his first morning, when he woke up wearing nothing but skimpy black boxer briefs to find MJ staring down at him with wide eyes, like she was unsure what he was doing on her couch.

She asked if he was lonely and when he said ‘no’, she’d simply shrugged and turned to the television, feeding a DVD into the player and plopping herself down on the floor.

It had been six-thirty in the morning, and so far, every morning has been the same.

Normally, Jared can catch a few more hours after MJ leaves for preschool and Jensen locks himself away in his office, but not this morning, and he crosses the living room and leans through the pass, trying to understand what the problem is.

“I’ve got responsibilities, Sebastian, that’s why,” Jensen’s saying to the guy on the phone, who sounds like a real dick as far as Jared is concerned, even though he can’t hear the other side of the conversation. “Because I’m a fucking single father, and no offence to you and your precious contracts, but my daughter does, and always will, come first.”

There’s a pause as Jensen listens to whatever this Sebastian guy is saying, and then his face clouds over in anger. “Well, fuck you, Sebastian; trust me when I say the senior partners will hear about this.”

Jensen hangs up the phone and throws it onto the countertop, watching it skid across the marble until it hits the wall. “Shit!”

“Gotta put a dollar in the swear jar,” Jared tries, attempting to lighten the mood. “Well, couple of dollars actually, that was a lotta swearing I just heard.”

Jensen jumps, startled, and spins around to face him. His expression crumbles in embarrassment. “Shit, Jared, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Jared shrugs and leans further into the kitchen. “It’s no big deal. Everything alright?”

Jensen heaves a deep breath as he gets a cup of coffee for Jared. “This guy at the main office, he’s a real asshole.”

“Sounds like it,” Jared says as he takes a sip.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t like it that I’m based from home, seems to think that means I get paid to sit on my ass and watch cartoons all day.”

Jared frowns, because even in just the four days he’s been here, he can see how hard Jensen works, locking himself in his office for hours at a time as he pours over manuscripts, making notes and proof-reading hundreds of thousands of words a day.

“Anyway, he’s finally reached his limit, apparently, says if I don’t come into the office this afternoon to sign off on all the manuscripts I’ve handed in in the last month, he’s going to do it for me. Which means he’ll get credit for signing on the four new authors I’ve found this week.”

Jared frowns. “He can’t do that, can he?”

Jensen throws his hands in the air and resumes his pacing. “Who the fuck knows, man? And it’s not like I can actually go in there and stop him from carrying out his threats. I have to pick MJ up from school.”

“There’s no one who can get her for you, just once?”

Jensen shakes his head. “I tried everyone. Danneel and Chad are on the same shift at the hospital, there until midnight; Chris has got some fucking doctor’s appointment I don’t even want to start thinking about. My parents are on some…retired couples cruise or something and Mack’s at school. There’s no one.”

“What about Josh?” Jared asks, confused as to why Jensen didn’t mention his brother.

Jensen’s face twists in an unpleasant way. “We’re not exactly on speaking terms, lately.”

Jared doesn’t push the issue, sensing that it’s something too big to get into when Jensen’s having a meltdown in his kitchen.

“What about me?” The words are out of his mouth before the thought has fully formed in his head, but now that it’s out there, Jared doesn’t try to take the offer back.

Jensen’s head snaps towards him and there’s something in his eyes that looks suspiciously like fear. “What?”

“I can pick her up, right? I mean, I don’t have a car yet, so I’ll probably have to take the bus or get a cab, but I can do it. She’s getting better around me and it’s only going to be for a little while anyway. Just until you sign those contracts or whatever, right?”

“Jared, I…”

“Come on, Jen, I don’t want you to lose out on something just because you’re stuck in a bind you can’t get out of. I’m right here, I’m not doing anything. Let me help.”

He’s not sure why he’s pushing this. He spends time with MJ, sure, but it’s stilted and awkward, both of them getting used to each other, and while MJ’s not so intimidated by his height anymore, she’s still shy around him, reserved in a way she never is with Chad and Chris.

It hurts to see someone else in the best friend role of Jensen’s life, even though Jared knows that Chris and Jensen have been friends since elementary school.

Chad’s another story, but Jared gets it. Chad was around when Jared wasn’t, and once again he’s cursing the fact that he ever boarded the plane to fucking Tokyo.

“I have to call the school,” Jensen says, his voice choked. “Um, I have to give them your name, inform them that you’re allowed to pick her up, because, you know, they’re careful about shit like that.”

Jared nods. That’s to be expected.

“So, you might have to actually go into the building and get her, so that they know the right person is there for her.”

“I can do that,” Jared tells him.

“She gets out at two-thirty. It’s not that far, so you can walk. I’ll leave directions.”

Jared laughs in the face of Jensen’s obvious concern. “Jensen, I’m not going to forget. Or run away with her or something. We’ll be okay for a few hours.”

“No, I know,” Jensen says quickly. “It’s just…it’s a lot to ask from you.”

“It’s your daughter, Jensen. I’d do anything to help when it comes to her.”

He’s more than a little surprised at the truth behind his statement.

 

///

 

_“Jensen, how would you feel if you were in his shoes? Wouldn’t you want to know you had a daughter?”_

Jensen groans and rolls his eyes heavenwards. “Mama, I didn’t call you for a lecture, okay? I’ve already heard enough about this from Danni and Chad and Chris.”

Jensen’s mother sighs. _“Then why did you call me, Jensen? I am on vacation, you know. Or at least, I’m supposed to be.”_

Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s honestly not sure anymore why he called. He’d just gotten to the main offices of his company and the whole thing had slammed into him.

Jared was picking up MJ. He was going to be taking care of her, spending time with her. What if she said something?

_“Well, Jensen, if she lets something slip, then you’ll have no one to blame but yourself for not telling him as soon as he walked through the door.”_

Oh, he must have said that last part out loud.

“Mama,” he groans.

_“You should have told him the second you found out you were pregnant,”_ she goes on, clearly not listening to him. _“What must that poor boy be thinking?”_

“He’s thinking I got some girl knocked up the second he left town, is what he’s thinking,” Jensen snaps. “I mean, _I_ didn’t even know I could get pregnant. There’s no way Jared would even _think_ that MJ could be his.”

_“You should tell him,”_ Donna says in that patented mom-voice.

“Mom, he just got him back. I don’t think I could survive if he left again because of this.”

_“You will survive, Jensen, because you have MJ to think about. You can’t just think with your dick anymore, boy.”_

Jensen choked on his tongue. “Mama! That’s not…I wasn’t.” He huffs a breath. “That’s not what I meant. I never should have let him leave in the first place.”

Donna is silent for a few seconds, and Jensen knows he’s said too much.

_“Baby…are you saying that you…that you love him?”_ she stammers and Jensen nods before he remembers that he’s talking to her on the phone and she can’t see him.

“I didn’t realize it until after he told me he was leaving, and then I couldn’t come up with a reason to make him stay,” Jensen explains softly. “It was more than three months before I found out I was pregnant, and by that stage, Jared was probably already settled in Tokyo. He sure as hell was too busy to call me.”

_“If you’d told him about the baby, maybe he would have come back,”_ his mother says, not unkindly.

Jensen snorts. “Yeah, he would have come back for MJ, not for me. If he even wanted to know her, that is.”

_“Jensen, you can’t know that for sure. You have to give the boy a chance, he deserves at least that.”_

“But what if…” Jensen snaps his mouth closed on the words. He doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to talk about it, but it seems as though his mother’s telepathic powers are working even through a phone line, because she sucks in a deep breath.

_“What if he’s like Josh?”_ she finishes for him. _“That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”_

Jensen can’t deny it, so he doesn’t even try. “Well, what if he is? What if he’s disgusted by the idea that he got me pregnant? It almost killed me, what Josh said, what he did. I don’t think I could take it if Jared felt the same way.”

He remembers that day in the living room like it was yesterday, remembers the horrified, disgusted look on his brother’s face as he stared at Jensen like he was something a dog couldn’t even stomach. He also remembers the split lip Chris gave his older brother, the surprise on Josh’s face when Mackenzie had lifted her hand to him just seconds before their dad and Chris had dragged him to the front door and threw him bodily onto the grass. And he remembers the hurt his mother tried to mask as she told her oldest son he wasn’t a part of their family anymore.

It was the worst day of their lives.

_“You still have to give him that chance, Jensen. You got through it when it was Josh, and we’ll get you through it if it happens with Jared. But, baby, you need to allow him to make his mind up for himself instead of doing it for him.”_

Jensen shakes his head, pressing his fingers to his temple as he tries to force away all of those horrible images.

“Mom, I can’t talk about this anymore, the whole reason for Jared picking up MJ was because I had stuff to do at work, so I should get on and do that.”

_“You want me to call you later?”_ Donna asks and Jensen almost says ‘yes’ before he remembers he’s a grown man with a daughter of his own. He can’t rely on his mommy anymore.

“No, I’ll, um, just talk to you when you get back.”

_“Telling him has got to be better than torturing yourself like this, sweetheart.”_

Jensen grunts. “That’s what Danni keeps saying. And Chad. And Chris. Riley, Steve and Misha would probably tell me the same thing if they knew Jared was back home.”

“Jared’s back home?” Jensen looked up at the door of the supply closet he’d locked himself in to see Misha leaning against the jamb, his eyebrow raised in surprise.

“Love you, Ma, I gotta go.” He hangs up on her before she can reply and glares at Misha. “Please tell me you don’t need this closet for something seedy and disgusting.”

Misha shakes his head. “I’ve been perfectly satisfied by my wife this morning, thank you. Besides, ever since we had the babies, she’s been a lot more…possessive of me.”

Jensen hums. “A wife wanting to be the only person her husband sleeps with. Imagine that.”

Misha shrugs, as if he’s so put upon. “I’ll learn to live with it. Let’s get back to this news about Jared being home.”

“Arrived on Sunday. He’s sleeping on my couch until he can find a place.”

Misha stares at him. “And you didn’t think to tell him that he already had a place?” When Jensen just stares at him in ignorance, Misha rolls his eyes. “ _Your place_ , Jensen. I know you’re still in love with him. Everyone knows.”

“Don’t start, Misha,” Jensen groans. “I can’t take it from you, too.”

Misha holds up his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Besides, I think whatever I have to say, you already know.”

“Yeah,” Jensen agrees, “I probably do. I know he deserves to know, I knew it before the others started telling me over and over and over again. But it’s not as easy as that. It’s been four years, Misha.”

“And yet, you were still the one he came home to, the only one he asked to stay with.”

Jensen snorted. “He said it was because I told him he’d always have a place to say. Said he wanted to come see me first.”

“He knows where I live,” Misha points out. “And Chris and Danni. Riley. And I know we all told him the same thing when he left, that if he wanted to come back, he’d always have a bed until he got himself back on his feet. And I’m sure there are other people I don’t know who he could have gone to. But he came to you. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

 “That he thinks I’m easy?” Jensen guesses. “He looked a little annoyed when I told him he had to sleep on the couch.”

“Or maybe you’re the reason he actually came home.”

Jensen pauses, because, honestly? The thought hadn’t crossed his mind; that Jared had come home for him.

“But…he hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t treated me as anything more than a friend.”

Misha looks at him like he’s a little slow. “Jen, he came home to find out that you had a daughter. Out of context, what do you think that looks like to him?”

Jensen shrugs. “That I knocked up some girl?” Jensen doesn’t think that Jared would immediately go to the ‘birth-father’ explanation.

“Or that you moved on,” his friend says slowly, “found someone else, fell in love with someone who isn’t him.”

Jensen raked his fingers through his hair. “God, I made such a fucking mess of all of this. I should have just told him back then that I didn’t want him to go. I could have saved myself all of this fucking second-guessing.”

Misha nods carefully. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have that beautiful little girl right now if you’d done that.”

“Don’t play Devil’s Advocate with me, Misha.”

“I’m just saying, you can’t change the past, Jensen. But right now, you have the opportunity to put this right. If you actually grow a pair and open your mouth and do it.”

“Alright, get out, man. I didn’t come in here to be insulted.” Jensen shoves at Misha until they stumble from the supply closet.

“What are you even doing here anyway?” Misha asks, tripping back a few steps and bumping into someone who was walking past. “Oh, I’m so sor-” Misha starts, until he sees who he’d collided with, and then his mouth curls in a sneer. “Sebastian.”

Sebastian looks at him coolly, before dismissing him without a word and glaring at Jensen. “Glad to see you could drag yourself away from your couch,” he spits in that clipped accent.

“I’m here, Misha,” Jensen says, ignoring Sebastian’s words, “because Mr. Roche has threatened to take credit for the contracts and manuscripts I’ve brought into the company recently.”

Misha draws himself up to his full height, crossing his arms over his chest. “Is that so?”

“I want you to pull your weight, Ackles,” Sebastian snaps.

“Well,” Misha says before Jensen has a chance to speak, “I’m sure Mr. Morgan would love to know just how you’re pulling your weight, Sebastian, if you think Jensen’s advances for this company are yours to claim.”

Jensen stifles a giggle. He isn’t sure that he was planning on actually saying anything to anyone about Sebastian’s threats, but he has to admit, it doesn’t hurt to be friends with the executive-assistant of the senior partner.

Sebastian glares at both of them, but it doesn’t have any of the power it held before. “See that those contracts are signed, Ackles.”

“Already done and on their way to Morgan as we speak,” Jensen assures and watches with something that resembles glee as Sebastian storms off.

“Morgan’s out for the day,” Misha says, apropos of nothing, “you wanna go grab something to eat? Maybe get a drink?”

Jensen thinks about Jared and MJ at home, wonders what they’re doing and feels the need to be home with them tugging at him.

But all of his friends are right. He needs to tell Jared that MJ is his daughter, and if he wants any sort of hope that Jared won’t reject her completely, he knows he has a better chance of that if Jared knows MJ a little.

And to get to know her, he has to spend time with her, time without Jensen around to act as a buffer.

“Sure.”

 

///

 

Jared had to go all the way to the reception desk and give his name to the petite brunette sitting behind the counter when he went to pick up MJ.

 She’d smiled up at him and made a phone call, telling whoever was on the other end of the line that Jared was here.

It was another few minutes before MJ came down the hall with another petite brunette (was it mandatory that you had to be small with brown hair to work at the preschool?). She was holding onto her teacher’s hand in a death grip, like she was scared to let go.

“Hey, MJ,” Jared says, crouching down in front of her.

“Hi, Jared,” MJ mumbles, fingers at her lips.

“So, uh, your daddy had to go into work for a little while, so I told him I’d come pick you up. That’s cool, right? We can hang out for a little while, can’t we?”

“Can we go for milkshakes?” MJ asks, perking up a little, and beside her, the teacher laughs.

Jared looks up at her. “Blackmail,” she tells him, her brown eyes twinkling. “All kids are masters at blackmail.”

Jared grins. “I’m starting to see that.”

“First time around a kid?”

Jared nods. “I was living in Japan for a couple years, came back home to stay with a friend – MJ’s dad – only to find out he’d picked up this little munchkin sometime after I left.” He reaches out to tickle MJ’s tummy and she delights him by giggling.

She shrugs. “They ain’t so hard, really. Just don’t say ‘no’ to anything and let the parent do the disciplining. You’ll be golden.”

Jared chuckles as he gets back to his full height. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s the advice you’re supposed to give out, what with being a teacher and all.”

“Eh, I’m just trying to make this a little easier for you. You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad! I’m just…a little outta my comfort zone.”

She just nods at that. “You’ll be a pro by the end of the day.” She turns back to MJ. “Be good. I’ll see you tomorrow, Molly-Jay.”

Jared frowns, clearly mishearing what the teacher said. She’d called MJ ‘Molly’ and used Jared’s own nickname.

Had MJ been talking about him in class? Enough that her teacher felt comfortable enough using Jared’s nickname?

 “Bye, Miss Sandy,” MJ – Molly? – says with a polite wave and she steps forward to take Jared’s hand.

“Thanks for the advice,” Jared says, tipping an imaginary hat before he leads Jensen’s daughter out of the building.

“So, Molly,” he says as he takes her by the hand and leads her down the front steps of the school. He tries out the name, just to see how she responds.

“Jay,” she says and Jared laughs. She’d obviously heard Jensen call him that at some point in the last few days and is copying him. Jared decides that he likes it. And she didn’t correct him when he’d called her ‘Molly’. That was at least one positive thing to come out of this so far, he knew the little girl’s real name.

“What is it you wanna do?”

“Milkshakes,” she repeats, bouncing on her toes as she swings on his hand.

Jared scowls. “I don’t know what time your daddy’s gonna be home. I don’t want him to worry about where we are.” The last thing he needs is for Jensen to have a fucking coronary because Jared took MJ into town without telling him. “But…” he continues when he sees the wobble of MJ’s lower lip, “I did pass a grocery store on my way here, how about I make you a milkshake when we get home? Any flavor you want.”

She looks up at him, her hazel eyes wide with hope and dimples flashing. “Any flavor?”

Jared narrows his eyes at her. “Your daddy doesn’t allow you to have chocolate, does he?”

MJ sticks out her lower lip in a pout. “No.”

“Alright, then, any flavor but chocolate,” Jared decides. “The last thing I need is for your daddy to get so mad at me he won’t let me look after you anymore.”

“Pineapple,” MJ says instead and Jared makes a little gurgle of disgust.

“Whatever floats your boat, kid,” he tells her, but when he stops to think about it for  a second, he can remember Jensen drinking pineapple milkshakes a lot, back when he was working at that greasy diner on the edge of town, before they went and grew up and became all respectable.

Well, Jensen became grown up and respectable. Jared doesn’t really think living on his friend’s couch without a job counts as responsible.

They don’t take long at the store, Jared gathering all the ingredients he needs for MJ’s milkshake quickly, and adding some bananas and strawberries to the cart to make one for himself.

They make it back home within forty minutes, and Jared lifts MJ up onto the kitchen counter – with strict instructions that she is not to even fidget in place – before he hunts the cupboards for a blender.

He’s half-afraid that Jensen doesn’t own a blender when he comes up empty as he checks the obvious places, and the thought of disappointing the little girl make his gut clench painfully. But then he lets out a whoop of success when he finds it stashed at the back of the cupboard above the stove.

It’s dusty when Jared pulls it out, and he spends a few minutes washing the jug in the sink before he gives the thing a look-over.

“Your daddy’s not one for blending, huh?” he asks MJ, not really expecting an answer.

“Daddy says I’m a big girl now,” she says, surprising him, and Jared suddenly understands.

Jensen, heath freak that he is, clearly made all of MJ’s meals himself, instead of relying on the disgusting jars of baby food that looked like vomit. The blender was obviously relegated to the cupboard as soon as MJ grew old enough for solids.

“We’ll have to remind him that there’s more to a blender than making baby foods.”

As he starts in on MJ’s milkshake, the questions about her young life bubble up to the surface of Jared’s brain again. It’s clear from the little he’s just been able to establish that MJ has been with Jensen her whole life. Or, at least, since she was old enough to be eating something other than milk.

But that still doesn’t explain her mother, who she was or why she’s no longer in the picture, and Jared wishes – not for the first time – that he had the balls to just outright ask Jensen who he slept with.

As he watches the food whirl around in the blender, Jared tries to think about the girls who were part of their regular scene back then. There’s Danneel, obviously, but Jared’s already taken her out of the running. Katie, Jewel, Felicia, they were all girls Jared met through Jensen and the office parties he’d dragged Jared to. Charisma and Julie where two of Chris’ cast-offs that had managed to avoid being discarded like yesterday’s trash and had worked their way onto the call-list when someone was planning a party or a night out clubbing. And Genevieve was a friend of Jared’s from his college days.

But none of them seemed like the kind of woman who would just drop their newborn daughter without looking back.

There has to be more to it than that, Jared decides as he hands MJ her milkshake. It can’t be just a case of abandonment and he reaches for his cellphone to confirm it, bringing up a call list with numbers that he isn’t even sure are in service anymore.

But he has to try. He has to get to the bottom of this.

Charisma’s is the first name he comes to in his phonebook and his finger hovers over the call button as his mind is flooded with just how much of a bastard he’s being. This is Jensen’s life, this is Jensen’s _daughter’s_ life, and here Jared is, treating it like it’s some personal slight against him.

No wonder Jensen never asked him to stay back then.

With a deep, remorseful sigh, Jared puts his cellphone away and gives MJ a careful grin before turning to make his own milkshake.

Still, it might not be his place to go digging for information about MJ’s mother, but, as far as Jared is concerned, MJ herself is fair game.

“So, Molly,” he says, trying to make his voice sound casual.

“Jay,” she replies, and Jared can’t help it, he still smiles at the use of his nickname.

“How old are you?”

“Three,” she mumbles around her straw. “I’ll be four soon.”

Jared frowns. He was never any good a math, despite his job, and he can’t really work out the dates in his head.

“When’s your birthday? Mine’s July 19th.”

“April 22nd,” she grins up at him, but Jared’s stomach just flips over.

Jared left for Tokyo on August 21st, and a quick calculation tells Jared that that was only eight months before MJ was born and that can only mean one thing.

Jensen slept with someone else when Jared was still in Texas.

 

///

 

Jensen stands on the porch and watches the cab drive away, the red taillights glowing brightly in the darkness.

“Shit,” he curses loudly, thumping his head repeatedly against the front door as the realization of what he’s done crashes over him.

He didn’t mean to stay out so late, he didn’t mean to have so many beers, and he certainly didn’t mean to have those three tequila shots Felicia pressed into his hands, but once everyone had started showing up at the bar Misha had dragged him to, everything had just felt so…normal. Like he was just another one of the guys hanging out with the crowd from the office.

Jensen hasn’t been that guy for a long time.

Sure, the guys come over every Saturday night and they hang out, play poker or video games while they drink whatever there is on offer, but, off the top of his head, Jensen can’t actually remember the last time he went out. The last time he went clubbing, or just out to a bar to get completely wasted just because he could, and there’s something in the back of his mind that’s telling him the last time was with Jared, before he left.

But all of that still doesn’t give Jensen the excuse to do what he did tonight, and he thumps his head against the door again, trying to knock some sense into his thick skull, or at least to try and come up with something to say once he opens the door.

Suddenly, the decision is taken away from him as the door swings inwards. Jensen stumbles a little, his arms flailing out for balance until he comes into contact with the firm chest of the man standing in front of him.

He manages not to moan out load at the firmness of the muscles underneath his fingertips, but it’s a close thing.

“Jensen, where the hell have you been?” Jared practically growls. “It’s after midnight. You’ve been gone since before lunch.”

Jensen takes a step back and looks at his watch. He doesn’t remember it being that late.

“I’m sorry, Jay,” he says with a hiccup, and boy, that isn’t getting any easier to say. Jensen really should come up with a new nickname for the guy. “Misha took me out for lunch, and then all the other guys from the office started turning up, and I haven’t seen them for a really long time and I just…got carried away.” It’s not the greatest excuse in the world – in fact, it’s not an excuse at all – but it’s all Jensen has, and he can tell that Jared isn’t buying it for a second, especially considering the giggle Jensen lets out at the end of this explanation.

Jared blinks those oh so familiar hazel eyes at him. “Are you drunk?”

“No?” Jensen tries, but it doesn’t even sound convincing to his alcohol-laden mind.

“Jensen, you’ve been gone all day,” Jared repeats, like he thinks Jensen’s stupid. “Do you know how many times I tried to call you? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Jensen frowns, confused, and pulls his cellphone out of his jeans. “I didn’t get any calls. I thought you were okay because you didn’t call. Oh.” He cuts his rambling short when he looks at the screen and sees the twenty-seven missed calls he has. Twenty-one of them are from Jared, five from Chris and one from Riley, but it wouldn’t surprise him if Riley was just calling to see if it was poker or Madden this Saturday.

Jensen also spots the nineteen text messages – all from Jared – but his attention is focused on the little icon in the top left hand corner that tells him all of his sounds and alerts have been turned off. He doesn’t remember doing that.

“It’s on silent,” he mumbles to the phone and Jared lets out a deep sigh and turns back into the house.

Oh, right. He’s still standing on the porch.

“Jen, I know you can’t be this irresponsible.” Jared is pacing up and down the living room when Jensen finally makes his way there, stopping in the hallway to shrug out of his jacket and kick off his shoes.

“I wasn’t being irresponsible,” Jensen argues, but Jared just glares at him.

“You left me alone with your daughter, Jensen. _Alone._ ” Jared throws his hands up in the air. “I didn’t know anything! I didn’t know what she was allowed for dinner, how much TV she was allowed to watch, if she had any homework to do, if I was even allowed to give her a bath or not when she told me that’s what she usually does every night with you. Fuck, Jensen, I didn’t even know what time her bedtime was. I had to call Chris and ask him. Do you have any idea how out of my depth I was today?”

Jensen can see that Jared is freaked out, but part of him doesn’t care, because he’s just pissed off. Jared is MJ’s _father_ ; it’s his fucking responsibility to look after her for a while. Jensen’s had three fucking years relying on friends who do what they can, but at the end of the day, MJ just isn’t their responsibility.

“Letting me have a night to myself is the least you can fucking do,” Jensen says angrily as he shoves past Jared to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water.

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jensen really shouldn’t be surprised that Jared followed him, and he isn’t, he’s more surprised by Jared’s words.

He pauses with the glass halfway to his lips and silently curses his drunken state. Of course Jared doesn’t know what the hell Jensen is talking about, because Jared doesn’t know that he’s MJ’s father, because Jensen has kept it from him for entire length of MJ’s existence and Jensen suddenly realizes he’s not sober enough for this conversation.

“Nothing,” he says calmly. “I just meant…I’m letting you stay here, Jared. I’m sorry if I ask for one small thing in return.”

Jared purses his lips together into a thin line and nods his head, and even from across the room, Jensen can tell that his anger level just rose dramatically.

“Do you have any idea of the amount of crazy scenarios than ran through my head tonight, Jen? She’s your daughter, and you left her with someone she barely knows.”

_I left her with her father,_ Jensen thinks to himself, but he doesn’t say anything, just nods his head as he lowers his gaze.

“It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be safe with you.” Jensen thinks it’s the most honest thing that he can say at this point, and he’s rewarded with Jared’s eyes filling up, but the younger man blinks his tears away and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Jensen, of course she would be safe with me, but that’s not the point.”

Jensen swallows the water in his mouth, almost choking on it in his rush to get the words out. “It isn’t?”

“No, Jensen.” Jared cups the back of his neck and looks at the ceiling, like he’s trying to find the words for what he wants to say. Jensen doesn’t think they’re up there.

“MJ, she…”

Through the alcohol muddying up his system, Jensen suddenly gets a cold spike of fear. “What? Is she okay? What happened?” If anything happened to his daughter, Jensen doesn’t think he’ll be able to forgive himself.

Jared holds his hands up, placating him. “No, nothing happened, she’s fine. She’s asleep, I just checked on her fifteen minutes ago.”

Jensen squints at him across the bright kitchen. “Then what?”

“She doesn’t know me, Jensen,” Jared says as his shoulders slump. “I’m a stranger to her, and you left her with me all day, alone. And yeah, she trusts me because she knows I’m a friend of yours, but…she wasn’t happy today, Jensen.”

And doesn’t that just sober Jensen right up?

 

///

** Chapter 4 **

Jensen wakes up the next morning to tiny fingers poking at his cheeks and pinching his nose. He snorts and bats the hands away before he opens his eyes.

“Hi, Daddy,” MJ says, grinning down at him.

Jensen groans and turns his face into his pillow. “What time’s it?” he grumbles.

“I can’t tell time yet but Uncle Chris says you gots to get up now, ‘fore he drags your…your butt down the stairs.” MJ giggles and presses her mouth close to Jensen’s ear. “He didn’t say ‘butt’, he said some-fing else, but I think it’s a bad word, so I made him put a dollar in the jar.”

Jensen can do nothing but stare at her. “Uncle Chris is here?”

“Uh, huh!” MJ says brightly. “He’s making pancakes and they’re all different colors! Like a rainbow!”

Jensen pushes the covers away and sits up, watching with amusement as his daughter pulls herself up onto the mattress. “Why is Uncle Chris here? Where’s your…” Jensen cut himself off, the words he’d been about to say sitting heavy on his tongue, trying to push their way past his lips.

_Where’s your dad?_

“Where’s Jared?” he finishes lamely.

“He left.”

Jensen chokes on his tongue. “What?”

MJ shrugs. “He watched _Roger Rabbit_ with me and then Uncle Chris came and Jared left. He kissed my head and said he’d see me later.”

Jensen nods and tries to fight through the hangover that was making everything slightly fuzzy around the edges. “Alright, sweetheart, go on down and get your pancakes and tell Uncle Chris I’ll be down in a minute. I’m just gonna go to the bathroom.”

“Okay!” She hops down off the bed and skips off brightly without looking back.

Jensen sits there for a few more minutes, trying to will himself to wake up and face the music, to go downstairs and see the new hole that Jared has left in his life. He’d told MJ that he would see her later, but how much later? Hours? Days? Weeks?

Years?

Jensen’s not sure he can handle losing Jared for a second time, even though to lose Jared, he’d have to have Jared in the first place.

In the end, it’s another five minutes before Jensen can force himself to get up and pull on some clothes before he goes to the bathroom, trying to make himself look at least a little presentable when he gets downstairs.

When he enters the kitchen, MJ is already sitting at the table, her legs swinging as she digs into her rainbow-colored pancakes, and she gives him a bright smile when she sees him.

Jensen returns the smile, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Chris is standing by the counter, his hair pulled back with a bandana and a mixing bowl in his hands. He’s looking at Jensen with something in his eyes that Jensen can’t figure out, something that looks a lot like disappointment.

“Is Jared coming back?” It’s the only thing in Jensen’s head right now and he needs an answer, needs to know, one way or the other, so that he can figure out what he has to do next.

“All his stuff’s still here, so I’m taking that as a good sign,” Chris says calmly, his eyes on whatever’s in the bowl.

“I screwed up, didn’t I?”

Chris nods and Jensen realizes that he’s making French toast. “I’d say pretty epically.”

Jensen nods and reaches for the coffee. “You know, this isn’t just my fault. Misha was the one who dragged me out and got me drunk.”

“Oh, I already called him and tore him a new one,” Chris confirms.

“A new what?” MJ asks, her mouth filled with food.

“Eat your pancakes,” Jensen and Chris tell her in unison.

“And don’t talk with your mouth full,” Jensen adds. She sticks her tongue out at him and he can do nothing but roll his eyes.

“But, you see, Jen,” Chris continues like he was never interrupted, “Misha was under the impression that your daughter was with someone who knew what they were doing when it came to looking after her. It seems that you failed to mention that she was with Jared, and you know damn well he would have sent you home if he had known.”

“Maybe I didn’t want him to know,” Jensen mumbles into his mug.

“I think I speak for everyone here when I says ‘duh’,” Chris snarks.

“Stop watching those teeny-bopper romance shows.”

“I made Misha pick me up so that I could go get your car, so you have to drive me home later. No drinking.”

Jensen gags a little at the thought of more alcohol and silently agrees to Chris’ plan.

“Seriously, though, Jen,” Chris says as he turns to face Jensen head on, “what were you even thinking? Or was that the whole problem, you weren’t thinking at all?”

Jensen looks back at the table, at MJ, whose eyes are glued to the rainbow mess on her plate and he sighs loudly even as he lowers his voice to answer Chris’ question.

“I just…I wanted to be normal for once.” That sounds stupid even to his own ears and he’s not surprised when Chris gawps at him.

“ _Normal?!_ ” he screeches. “What the hell does that mean?”

Jensen shrugs. “You know, out with my friends while Jared stays at home with the baby.” Chris’ eyes sparkle with realization, but Jensen presses on before his friends can say anything. “I just…I just wanted it to be _real_ , just for a little while. Just for those couple hours, I could pretend that Jared was at home, taking care of our child while I went out with some friends from work. And it all just seemed so easy, so natural, and so…so fucking _believable_ that I actually believed it myself. So much so that I forgot that Jared had no idea what he was doing when it came to MJ. I just…I forgot.”

“And you don’t think that telling Jared the truth would make that fantasy a reality?”

“Or it could make him run out the door and I’ll never see him again.” Jensen shakes his head. “I can’t do it, Chris, I can’t take that risk and end up losing Jared anyway, it’s too hard.”

Chris stops what he’s doing completely and gives Jensen his full attention, crossing his arms over his chest as he does. “He’s going to find out, Jen. You can’t keep this a secret forever.”

Jensen sets his jaw. “Watch me.”

“You stubborn, selfish son of a bitch,” Chris hisses. “You’d rather let your daughter live a lie just so that you could save yourself a little bit of heartache?”

“I’m saving her, too!” Jensen retorts. “So that she’ll never have to know that he rejected her! So that she can still have him in her life, even if neither of them will never know the truth.”

“And what happens ten years from now? When MJ asks who her father is? Are you still going to lie to her?” As Jensen feels the heated rejoinder to that question build up on his tongue, he’s taken aback as Chris’ face drains of all the anger and instead, something a lot like pain fills his blue eyes.

“Chris?” he asks, worried suddenly, like he’s missed a huge part of this conversation.

“What if she gets sick?” his friend asks in a hushed whisper. “God forgive me for thinking it, but I can’t help it. What if MJ gets sick? What if she needs a kidney, or…or bone marrow or…God, I don’t even know. How are you gonna explain to Jared that he needs to be tested? What lie are you gonna come up with then?”

Jensen’s eyes are immediately drawn to his daughter, sitting at the kitchen table, completely oblivious to the conversation going on not three feet away from her. She’s the most important person in Jensen’s life, and he can’t even contemplate a world that she isn’t part of.

He doesn’t want to think about what would or could happen if MJ got sick, but Chris is right, the bastard. He needs to stop thinking about himself. There are three people caught up in Jensen’s web of lives and the other two deserve to know the truth, whether Jensen likes it or not.

“I didn’t want to think about that,” he admits finally. “I didn’t want to think about her being sick, because if she got sick then that would mean that I _failed,_ Chris. I failed in my job as a parent, and then it wouldn’t matter what lies I did or didn’t tell. I would be a failure and my little girl would be sick and the whole thing wouldn’t matter anymore. My life wouldn’t matter anymore.”

“Jensen, you have got to stop thinking in worst case scenarios. You’re so afraid of Jared rejecting you, or rejecting MJ or…or, hell, taking her away that you won’t-” Chris cuts himself off when Jensen looks away and lets out a low rumbling noise. “Wait, seriously? You think Jared is going to take her away from you?!”

Jensen shrugs. “You just said it yourself, Chris. I told a lot of lies to him, what if he finds out and decides that I’m an unfit parent? He could fight for custody.”

Chris rolls his eyes. “Do you honestly think that Jared of all people is capable of _taking your_ _daughter away from you_?”

“At this point, I don’t know what he’s capable of, and I don’t know if I’m willing to bet my daughter’s entire future on it.”

Chris just shakes his head. “If you think Jared would do anything like try to take MJ away from you, you are seriously mentally unstable. You need to stop living in fear. That little girl needs both of her parents, and one day, the truth will come out, Jensen. Whether it’s MJ asking about where she came from, or something not so easy and pleasant, it will come out, and I just think it would go down a hell of a lot better for everyone involved if they heard it from you.”

Jensen nods, mind made up. He’ll deal with whatever the fallout of his revelations turns out to be, but right now is the time to stop burying his head in the sand and come clean once and for all.

“Did Jared say when he would be back? “ Jensen asks, his voice rough with emotion and out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Chris shake his head.

“No. He just called me and said he needed to go out and pick up a few things and would I mind watching MJ. Said he was meeting some people from his old work and that he’d catch me later.”

Jensen nods. “Okay, well, if I promise to talk to Jared as soon as he comes home, can we talk about you and Chad?”

For a split second, Chris gives an award winning impression of a deer caught in the headlights before he schools his features and turns away, his eyes hard on the mixing bowl in front of him. “No.”

“Chris,” Jensen practically whines, but Chris holds up a hand before he can say anything more.

“No. Look, Jen, can we just not do this? Please? I mean, I haven’t even got a chance to talk to Chad about it yet.”

Jensen snorts. “And whose fault is that?”

“His!” Chris hisses.

Jensen blinks, completely confused. “Uh, Chris, you told him to leave. What else was he supposed to do?”

“I didn’t actually think he’d go,” Chris confesses. “I mean, he’s _Chad_.  He’s supposed to stick around long past his welcome and invade people’s personal space and refuse to be ignored and I think my heart stopped beating when I realized he’d left.”

He says the last bit so quietly that Jensen has to lean in to hear him, and when the words finally register in his mind, he lets out a gasp.

“Holy shit, you’re in love with him.” The words are out of his mouth before the thought has fully formed in his head, but Jensen knows he’s right when Chris just grabs his ingredients and heads over to the frying pan that’s sizzling on the stove.

With wide eyes, Jensen looks back at MJ and sighs quietly when he realizes she’s been watching them with rapt fascination, the piece of blue pancake on the end of her fork completely forgotten about.

“Eat your breakfast, sweetheart,” he says softly before he follows his friend across his kitchen, standing so close to him that the grease that spits from the pan singes his forearm. “How long have you felt like this?”

Chris shrugs. “Couple months I guess. Don’t know when I even became aware of it.”

“Don’t you think you should talk to him about it?”

“And give the guy enough material to mock me with for the rest of our natural lives? Yeah, think I’ll pass on that one, Jensen.”

“Come on, Chris, you can’t really think that this was just a one night stand for him, can you? You have to know how he feels about you.”

“I don’t know anything, Jensen. All I know is that the guy skipped out pretty quick the morning after and in the last week, he’s managed to turn avoiding me into a fucking fine art.”

“Chris, it’s not like you’ve even really tried to talk to him.”

Chris glares at him. “He won’t answer my texts, he sends all my calls to his voicemail and I don’t even think he’s listening to any of the messages I leave and every time I see him in person, he’s either got MJ or Danneel attached to his hip, and last night, when I saw him at the bar, he pulled Sophia out onto the dance floor and spent all night velcroed to her. Sophia, man! You know how messed up he was after that and he’d still rather hang around her than me. He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

Jensen can’t help the chuckle that pushes its way past his lips. “Are you kidding me? He’s doing all of that because he thinks you’re gonna give him the brush off and he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want you to reject him, Chris.”

“I fucking love the little bastard,” Chris snaps.

“Gotta put the money in the jar,” MJ sings from the table and it forces a smile from her uncle, releasing the tension that has built up in the room.

“You know,” Jensen says, turning to lean back against the counter, “right now, you’re little melodrama is the one that causing all the problems. You’re throwing the whole group dynamic out of whack.”

Chris shoves a plate at him with a snarl. “I’m so sorry I’m causing you so much distress.”

“Oh, I’m not distressed,” he says with a grin, “I’m just loving the fact that you’ve managed to turn Danneel into the sane one.”

 

///

 

Jared stares at the empty beer bottle that’s sitting on the bar in front of him and tries to resist the urge to ask the bartender for another. And a bottle of whisky to chase it with.

He wants to get drunk, he wants to give Jensen a taste of his own medicine and come rolling into the house at three am completely wasted, and Jared knows that the only reason he isn’t doing that is because he’s scared of what he could say to Jensen when alcohol turns off his brain-to-mouth filter. And when the bartender stops in front of him and asks him if he wants another, Jared shakes his head and asks for a Coke.

The day hadn’t gone at all the way Jared had planned for it to go. The meeting with his old boss was supposed to have been a bright spot in the gloom that his life had become since questions about Jensen’s loyalty to him had surfaced.

Instead, Samantha Ferris had told him in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t a place for him at the company at the present time, and she’d look into it further when the departmental reshuffle came up in a month or so, leaving Jared wallowing in limbo.

Jared can’t blame her really. It’s one thing to promise to keep a job opening for someone for a few months, but even Jared can see that keeping his position open for four years is just not good business and he feels stupid and naïve for even thinking it.

He’s not holding his breath that she’ll be able to find something for him and he can’t sit around with his thumbs up his ass relying on her squeezing him in somewhere, he has to get out there and start looking for something else.

Now it’s late, well past eleven, and Jared’s sitting in the bar that used to be _their_ bar, thinking about all the ways his life sucks. The thought of looking for a new job on top of looking for a new apartment is just making his depression over Jensen even worse. He knows that Jensen will continue to let him sleep on his couch, but he doesn’t really find that thought as appealing as he did forty-eight hours ago.

Jared sighs and regrets not ordering that beer, regrets coming home, regrets getting on a plane to Tokyo in the first place.

“Uh, oh,” says a voice from behind him, “drowning your sorrows in a non-alcoholic beverage. Someone is having some major problems.”

Jared spins on his stool and breaks out into a huge grin when he takes in the petite brunette standing in front of him with her hands on her hips and a wry smile on her face.

“Genevieve!” Jared stands up so that he can sweep her into his arms, twirling her around as he hugs her close. “God, it’s so good to see you!”

“You, too, Jared. I didn’t even know you were back,” she says as he sets her back on her feet.

He gestures to the stool next to him and waits until she sits down before he retakes his own seat. “Uh, just this week, actually. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision. Didn’t really plan it.”

She gives him a knowing look. “Let me guess, Jensen?”

Jared just snorts and takes a sip of his Coke.

“What can I get for you, my love?” the bartender asks when he stops in front of Genevieve, his English accent loud and dominating over the din of the bar.

“I’ll have a scotch and soda,” she orders with a smile, “and I am not your love.”

Jared laughs loudly as the guy blushes and turns away. Genevieve hasn’t changed at all.

“That guy has been trying to get into my pants since the second he started working here,” Genevieve sighs. “If he didn’t give me the creeps so much, I might take him up on his offer, but…” she shivers theatrically and Jared just laughs harder.

“God, I’ve missed you.”

She beams up at him, her smile warm and comforting. Genevieve had been one of his best friends, once upon a time, but, like everyone else who wasn’t family, Jared had lost touch with her when he moved away and not for the first time he feels regret stinging behind his eyes.

“So, come on, tell me all about this unplanned change of location,” she starts just as her drink is set in front of her. She doesn’t even spare the guy a glance.

“Yeah, I decided to come back for Jensen, but right now, that doesn’t really look like it’s in the cards.”

She cocks her head to the side. “How come? Did he meet someone else?”

Jared looks at her through his lashes as he leans on the bar. “Did you know he has a daughter?”

Genevieve wrinkles her nose adorably. “Yeah, I haven’t seen him for a while, but I’ve seen him around a couple times, met his little girl…whose name I’m suddenly blanking on.” She looks embarrassed and it makes something in Jared spark with some weird sort of pride, like he’s pleased that she’s not dismissing Jensen’s daughter as unimportant.

“Molly,” Jared tells her confidently.

“Huh, I was sure it was some sort of hyphenated name. Weird.” She waves a hand at him. “Anyway, please go on.”

Jared looks away from her, directs his eyes to the scarred bar top. “I found out yesterday that Molly’s birthday is only eight months after I left.”

Genevieve is silent and when Jared looks up at her, she’s got an expectant look on her face, like she’s waiting for Jared to say something more.

“And…that means what?” she asks when she realizes that’s all Jared has to say.

“Gen, I’m not stupid, I know how long a pregnancy lasts. If Jensen’s daughter was born eight months after I left, it means that her mother was already pregnant with her when I was still here, which in turn means-”

“You think Jensen slept with someone else?” Genevieve interrupts, laughter and surprise in her voice.

“It’s obvious that that’s exactly what happened.” Really, Jared doesn’t see why Genevieve is so surprised that he thinks that.

“Yeah, but Jared, come on. I mean, not all pregnancies last the whole nine months. A baby can be born, like, fifteen weeks early and still survive. That’s more than three months, Jared.”

Jared blinks. “Really?” Genevieve rolls her eyes and sips her drink. “I’ve never been around many people who have had kids and all the ones I do know, their pregnancies have all been the standard nine months.”

She shrugs. “Just because it’s the norm doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions to the rule, Jared. Maybe Molly was born early. Maybe Jensen, completely distraught over your leaving, went out, got drunk out of his mind, fucked the nearest willing person, knocked her up and then complications resulted in an early delivery.”

“Alright, I’ll buy that, maybe, but why would he even sleep with a girl in the first place? I mean, Jensen isn’t like Chris, girls aren’t his thing. And by the way,” he rambles on, not giving Genevieve a chance to speak, “why would a woman give up her daughter, anyway? I’ve been home for a week and her mother hasn’t even been mentioned in passing.”

“Maybe she was still in college and couldn’t afford to raise a baby, so she thought the best thing to do was sign the baby over to Jensen. He’s settled, has a great house, a good job. He might have been able to give Molly a better upbringing than the mom.” Genevieve pauses for a second, like she’s considering something. “Or maybe Jensen adopted. Wanted something to fill his life with now that he didn’t have you.”

Jared shakes his head. “Nah, Molly looks too much like him to be adopted. Besides, he didn’t really have me, we were never official.”

Genevieve snorts into drink. “Yeah, right. We could all see how ass over elbows you two were for each other, it’s just neither of you had the balls to talk about it. If you didn’t think the two of you were official, you wouldn’t be so bent out of shape over the idea that he might have cheated on you.”

Jared says nothing, because that’s exactly how he feels and he’d rather not confirm anything to the spitfire next to him.

“Maybe he went to a surrogate,” is Genevieve’s next suggestion and she looks at him with a frown. “I don’t understand why none of these possibilities ever occurred to you. It’s like you headed for the worst possible scenario and set up camp.”

Again, Jared says nothing, because, again, she’s hit the nail on the head.

“The way my life is going, it’s usually the worst possible outcome that ends up being the truth.”

“Aw, Jay, that’s not true.”

“No? I came home for Jensen and he doesn’t want anything to do with me. He has a life now, a family, and there’s no room in it for me. He’s even replaced me as his best friend.” Thoughts of how easy Chad and Jensen’s friendship seemed the few times he’s saw them together flash through his mind, completely echoing Jared and Jensen’s own friendship back in the beginning.

“He’s seeing someone?” Genevieve asks, a tone to her voice that suggests she knows it isn’t true.

“No,” Jared admits, “but he’s made it clear that there’s nothing between him and me anymore.”

“Please,” she says, “the way that guy was in love with you, there’s no way he’s over it. Not if he hasn’t been dating at all in the last four years.”

Jared narrows his eyes at her. “How do you know he hasn’t been dating?”

She shrugs. “I keep in touch with Danneel. She told me the last date he went on was one she set him up with, like, three years ago. If that doesn’t tell you something then you’re stupider than you look.”

“Then why hasn’t he said anything?” Jared knows he’s whining, but he really can’t seem to stop himself.

“My guess? He’s scared of allowing you back into his life, of allowing you into his daughter’s life, only for you to turn around and leave again when you get itchy feet or something.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here, this is my home. Never leaving again.”

Genevieve smirks at him. “You said that to Jensen with that much conviction?”

Jared looks away from her piercing gaze. “Haven’t really talked much about what went on back then or what it could mean for us now that I’m back.”

“My advice is that you should do that. Soon. Before you give yourself an ulcer obsessing about it.”

“Yeah,” Jared admits, “I just…can’t seem to find the words. I mean, there’s a chance that this won’t go my way, and I kinda like living in this weird place where I can still pretend it could happen.”

Genevieve nods. “I can understand that, I guess, but I’m the kinda person who can’t really live with ifs and maybes. I don’t think I could live in that sort of limbo.”

Jared turns away from her and scowls at himself. Isn’t that exactly what he was telling himself before Genevieve got here? Maybe that should apply to his personal life as well as his professional?

“I just…I can’t seem to get my mind around the fact that he might have cheated on me. I know it was supposed to be a casual thing, but for three years, I never even thought about dating anyone else. I didn’t _need_ anyone else. I just assumed it was the same for him.”

“What does it matter, Jared? Maybe he cheated, so what? It was _four years_ ago. You’re both different people now, hell, Jensen’s a father now. You’ve both grown up, moved on, got over whatever it was that happened. Maybe now is the time to start fresh. Not pick up where you left off, but really start over, from scratch.”

Jared looks up at her through the curtain of his bangs. “What if I can’t do it? What if I never get past this? What happens to us then?”

Genevieve reaches out and cups the side of his face and Jared turns into her hand, seeking comfort in his friend.

“I can’t answer that question for you, honey. That’s something you need to decide after you’ve talked all of this out with Jensen. There’s no easy way through this.”

Jared pouts, sticking out his lower lip like he’s seen MJ do more than once when she wasn’t getting her own way. “Wanna do it for me?”

She laughs loudly, shaking her head in amusement. “I swear, those puppy-dog eyes of yours would make a lesser person commit murder if you asked. Luckily for you, I’m a pretty tough cookie.”

“That you are.” Jared takes a moment to drink her in, to bask in the knowledge that, even without Jensen, he has friends and people he can turn to.

After a few seconds of silence, Genevieve’s smile slips away and she looks down at her hands folded in her lap.

“Listen, Jared, I have one more theory about the origins of Jensen’s daughter.”

Jared quirks an eyebrow, curious. “Oh, yeah?”

She nods, still staring at her hands, like she can’t bring herself to look at Jared when she speaks. “I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this. In fact I _know_ I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think you deserve to know that it’s a possibility and then you can figure out what you want to do about it. If you want to do anything about it at all.”

“Gen, you’re kinda freaking me out here. What the hell are you talking about? How does this have anything to do with me?”

“Jared, I think maybe you could be-”

“Holy shit! That can’t be who I think it is!” A loud, obnoxious voice cuts Genevieve off mid-sentence and Jared knows who’s behind him before he turns around.

“It is! Mikey, it’s Jar-Head!”

Jared huffs a laugh at the nickname and spins on his stool to face the two guys standing behind him, both of them wearing shit-eating grins on their faces, the shorter one bouncing up and down on the spot.

“Shit,” Jared says with a roll of his eyes, “haven’t they locked you two up yet? I mean, I’ve been back a week and I haven’t seen you at all. I thought for sure that meant you were doing time in the State Pen.”

Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum – two of Jared’s closest friends at his old job – try to glare at him, but their smiles give them away and suddenly Jared finds himself in the middle of a three-way hug.

“Kinky,” he says when it goes on for longer than he’s comfortable with and fights a laugh when both Mike and Tom spring apart almost immediately.

“So, what’s going on, Jay?” Tom asks, punching him lightly in the shoulder. “You back or what?”

“Yeah,” Jared confirms, “back for good, I hope.”

“Awesome!” Mike exclaims, bouncing again. “You coming back to work?”

Jared cringes a little and shakes his head. “Nah, don’t think so. Saw Sam earlier, she says she doesn’t have room for me, but she’ll keep her eyes open during the next shuffle or something. Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.”

“You have anything lined up apart from Sam?” Tom asks, his eyes narrowed.

“Nope. Figure I’ll start looking on Monday, give myself a few more days of relaxation before I start the whole job-and-apartment hunting.”

“Can’t help you with the apartment,” Tom’s says, a smile creeping back onto his lips, “but I got a job for ya if you need one.”

Jared suddenly finds himself sitting bolt upright on his stool. “Are you serious? What kind of job?”

Mike claps Tom on the shoulder. “Mr. Big Shit here started up his own software design company about two years ago, up and left us to be his own boss.”

Jared stares at Mike, because really, this is starting to sound pretty great.

“It’s not a big company, but, Jared, I know how talented you are, and I know it would be a big asset to me if I had you on board. In fact, I’ve been planning this for years, and before you moved, you were gonna be the first guy I asked to be part of my team. The Tokyo thing, though, just makes it even better. I imagine you made a lot of contacts when you were out there.”

He nods. “Yeah, I built up some good relationships with some high profile companies all over Japan.”

“That is definitely the kind of advantage the company needs right now, I’d be stupid to let you get away.”

“Bet Sam Ferris will be thinking that same thing when she realizes what she’s done,” Mike says with a laugh.

Tom scratches the back of his neck. “Listen, I’m gonna need to put some numbers together, do a little creative thinking. How about you come see me Tuesday or Wednesday and we can figure this shit out?”

Jared gets down off his stool and pulls Tom into his arms. “Welling, you are a fucking lifesaver, man. I honestly don’t know how to thank you.”

“Bring in some new clients and we’ll call it even.”

Jared grins. “Consider it done.”

Tom fishes his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a plain white business card, the name of his company as well as all the important details standing out clearly in crisp black font. He takes a pen from the inside pocket of Mike’s jacket and scribbles something on the back of the card before he hands it to Jared. “That’s my personal cellphone number. Just give me a call about an hour before you come in and I’ll free up my office.”

Jared looks over the information and can’t stifle a giggle. “Welling Software. I thought for sure you’d pick some really random name. Like Smallville, or Kryptonite.” Tom’s love for all things Superman is well known.

Tom pouts. “Jamie wouldn’t let me.”

“So whipped, man,” Mike smirks.

“He’s not the only one.”

Jared turns his attention back to Genevieve to see her standing next to her stool with her purse in her hands. He feels a little crestfallen at the idea of her leaving and a lot guilty for having ignored her since the guys showed up.

“Are you leaving?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I was actually supposed to be meeting some friends tonight, and I have no idea if they’ve arrived or not because I’ve been sitting here talking to your lame ass.”

Jared feels himself blush. “God, Gen, I’m so sorry. You should have said something.”

She shakes her head. “It was good catching up.” Genevieve taps her finger nail against a piece of white paper sitting underneath his glass. “Give me a call and we can do this for real. It’s great to have you back, Jared.”

She turns and walks deeper into the bar before Jared can say anything in response and soon she’s disappeared into the gloom. Jared picks up the piece of paper containing Genevieve’s cellphone number and email and folds it carefully, slipping it into the back of his wallet with Tom’s business card.

“Jay, my poor, deluded friend,” Mike says, his eyes serious and his hands coming to rest on Jared’s shoulders, “why did you let that fine example of the female form just walk away?”

Jared frowns in confused amusement. “Because she has plans that don’t include me?”

Mike inclines his head in agreement. “Okay, fine, but promise me that you will hit that at some point in the future?”

“Hit that? Mike, what are you talking about?”

Tom is almost bent double he’s laughing so hard and Jared just stares at Mike as the older man continues to wave his hands emphatically in the direction Genevieve had disappeared.

Suddenly, Jared understands what Mike is trying to imply and he stands in the middle of the bar with wide eyes.

“Mike, I’m gay!” he exclaims a little too loudly and takes a perverse kind of pleasure in seeing all the air go out of Mike’s sails.

“WHAT?!” Mike yells after a second of silence, his voice so loud he draws the attention of the people sitting in the booths behind him and making Tom laugh even harder. “No, you’re…but how can you be…I mean you’re…what the fuck?!”

“It’s not like I’ve made a secret out of it! I’ve been out since high school! Not my fault you’re head’s too far up your own ass to notice what’s right in front of you.”

Mike’s quiet again for a few seconds, then his eyes tick to the last place they’d seen Genevieve. “So, does that mean you’re not going to pound my head if I try to pick up your friend?”

Jared ponders that for a while. “No, I’ll probably still pound your head, but only so that Tommy here can tell everyone that you got your ass handed to you by a gay guy.”

Tom agrees and high fives Jared enthusiastically.

“But…but…” Mike stammers. “It’s not like it’d count! I mean, look at you; you’re built like a fucking tree! No way anyone would anyone hold that against me!”

Jared narrows his eyes at the shorter man. “You know, Mikey, you’re kinda being a dick right now.”

Mike pales. “No, I’m not…I don’t…I don’t have a problem with it! I’m totally cool with you being gay! We are _good_ , I promise! No problems here. None. Zip.”

Tom just shakes his heads, still laughing hard. “I’m sorry, I’m just gonna take a moment to bask in Mike’s utter lack of awareness of the things around him. We’ve known this guy for almost seven years, man!”

Mike slumps down on Genevieve’s vacated stool. “Oh, I’m so sorry if it escapes my notice that the butchest, most manliest guy I know is a batting for the home team.”

Jared cocks his head to the side. “So, I probably shouldn’t tell you that my friend Jensen’s gay, too, then, huh?”

Mike blinks at him. “Wait, that guy you were always bringing to office parties and hanging out with?” Jared just raises his eyebrows and stares at Mike until he gets it. “Oh, fuck me sideways! He was your _boyfriend?_ ”

“Kinda the love of my life, man.” Suddenly, it’s like the whole world just _stops_ and those words echo in Jared’s head like they’re on a continual loop, playing over and over and over again and Jared’s finding it really hard to breathe.

“Jay? Are you alright?” Tom asks and Jared takes that concern to mean that he’s turned a funny color or something.

“Yeah, man,” Mike echoes, “I’m the one who’s supposed to be going to into shock because of your startling revelation. Since you were the one who told me I figure that should mean you already know.”

Jared just looks up at them, trying to figure out if the sounds coming out of their mouths were supposed to be words or not. After less than ten seconds, he gives up and jumps from his stool.

“I have to go.”

“Whoa, hey.” Tom catches his arm as he heads for the door. “I thought we could celebrate your new job.”

“Um,” Jared scratches at his head, trying to think of something he could say that would let him get out of this bar, “I’d really rather have that contract in my hand, you know? All signed and real. Call it a superstition or whatever, but I’m traditional that way.”

Tom nods and backs off, his hands palms up in the air. “Hey, I totally get it. I have a few of those superstitions myself. But you’ll call me, right?”

Jared grins. “First thing Tuesday and we’ll celebrate next weekend. I’ll even talk Jensen into getting a babysitter so that he can come along.”

“Awesome,” Mike concludes, pounding his fists on the bar and calling for the bartender’s attention.

“See you next week,” Tom says and Jared takes the opportunity to slip out the door.

The sun has set now and the night has turned chilly and Jared turns up the collar of his jacket as he starts the trek back to Jensen’s house. He’d taken a cab when he left the house at lunchtime for his meeting with Samantha, but he doesn’t want to do that now. Now Jared wants to use the walk to sort his head out, to figure out exactly what he’s going to say when he sees Jensen.

It needs to be perfect, it needs to be nothing but the truth, and as Jared buries his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he thinks again about the words he’d said to Mike.

Jensen is the love of his life, it’s not a past tense thing, and if Jared still feels that way, if he can know about Jensen’s possible infidelity and still feel that way about him, then there’s nothing more he needs to consider.

Now the only thing holding him back is wondering if Jensen feels the same way.

 

///

 

Jensen’s not concentrating on the movie. In fact, he’s not really sure what movie he’s supposed to be watching. All he knows is that there’s a spaceship, and a weird, mismatched crew, and he just watched a ninety-pound girl take out a whole bar and guy three times her size who is supposedly on her team without breaking a sweat.

It’s impressive, actually.

But no, Jensen’s attention is well and truly focused on Chad, sitting in the middle of the couch between Jensen himself and Chris and shifting closer to Jensen every time Chris moves to lift his beer from the coffee table.

“Dude,” he hisses when Chad moves again, “one more shuffle this way and you’re gonna be sitting in my lap.”

Chad gives him a look that clearly says he’s supposed to help in some way, but Jensen just stares back at him until Chad rolls his eyes and looks back at the TV.

Across the room, Riley snickers into his hand from his armchair. The seating arrangements had been Riley’s idea. He’d apparently figured who Chad was so messed up about at some point during the week and somehow managed to covertly make sure that Steve is sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV and Misha is curled up snugly in the other chair, leaving the couch the only option for Chris, Chad and Jensen. How Riley made sure Chad ended up seated in the middle, Jensen will never know.

Chris settles back against the couch again, his bottle resting on his thigh and Jensen relaxes, confident that, if Chris doesn’t move for a while, Chad won’t either and he focuses on the movie again, trying to figure out why that same ninety pound girl wants to put a bullet in her brain pan.

Jensen’s just starting to doze off, his head resting against the back of the couch, when the whole couch bounces as Chad jumps to his feet.

“I’m going home,” he announces as he marches towards the front door, not looking back at any of them or pausing to say goodnight.

“Chad?” Jensen calls after him, pushing himself to his feet, but Chris gets to his own first.

“Wait, where are you going? Why are you leaving?” Chris calls after the blond, crossing the room so that he can grab hold of Chad’s elbow.

Chad spins around before Chris can even touch him and if looks could kill, Jensen knows that Chris would be a smoldering pile of ashes right now.

“I give up!” Chad yells in Chris’ face.

Riley pauses the DVD like he’s been waiting for this moment to arrive and Steve flips himself over so that he’s resting on his elbows, watching Chris and Chad. In the other chair, Misha lets out a snore.

“Give up?” Chris repeats. “What are you talking about? Give up what?”

“I can’t do this. I can’t pretend that nothing happed between us and I won’t sit here and be groped by you when I know it doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s not…I wasn’t…” Chris stammers and then huffs loudly. “That wasn’t groping Chad, that was…that was…”

Jensen laughs. “Dude, were you trying to flirt with him?” Because really, it’s the only explanation Jensen has for this.

“Shut it, Jensen,” Chris says through gritted teeth, never taking his eyes off of Chad. “Listen, man, can we just talk? Please? Give me a chance to explain myself?”

Chad blinks and pauses for a second, like he’s considering. “No.” He spins on his heel and heads towards the door again.

“Chad!” Chris races after him. “Please, just, five minutes.”

“Why the hell should I? I know damn well what you’re about to say and I don’t want to hear it.”

It breaks Jensen’s heart a little to see the crestfallen look on Chris’ face as he takes in Chad’s words and he wants to step in, tell them they’re both being idiots, but this isn’t his fight.

“You don’t?” Chris asks and Chad shakes his head.

“I think I’d just rather spare myself the heartache of hearing you tell me that I don’t mean anything to you. If I don’t hear it, then I can at least pretend the whole thing was just a weirdly vivid dream.”

“But, that’s not what I was gonna say.”

Chad stops, pauses for a second as he stares at Chris, clearly thinking over his words. “It’s not?” Chris shakes his head. “Then what were you going to say?”

Jensen watches as Chris looks at him out of the corner of his eye, clearly not wanting to do this in the middle of Jensen’s living room. “Uh, can we go somewhere more private to talk about this? I’m not really good at this whole baring my soul thing and I’m even worse when there are people staring at me.”

Steve laughs.

Chad narrows his eyes at the older man, clearly contemplating agreeing to his request. Then he shakes his head. “No, I think I’d rather do this here. Now. With witnesses. So you won’t be able to squirm your way out of it later and I’ll have help to hide the body if I decide I want to kill you.”

Chris turns to glare at Jensen, but Jensen just shrugs. “You were the one who fucked up, man. We’re on Chad’s side.”

“For the record,” Steve says from the floor, “I’m not on anyone’s side. I’m just here for the entertainment value of seeing Chris trying to talk about his feelings.”

“I’m not good at this!” Chris says loudly, throwing his hands in the air and Jensen snorts.

“Clearly.”

“No, not that, I mean…this.” He waves a hand between himself and Chad. “I’ve never…liked someone. Never tried to have something with someone that lasted longer than one night. I’ve never had to figure out how to tell someone I have feelings for them.”

All the fight seems to leave Chad then, and he just stands in front of Chris, open and vulnerable like Jensen’s never seen him. “Well, you don’t kick them out of your apartment the morning after you spend the night together for a start.”

Steve chokes on his beer. “Dude, I thought this was just Chris trying to get into your pants. You telling me he’s already had your ass and he’s still interested?” The blond man exchanges a look with Riley. “Damn, this really is different.”

Misha snores again.

Jensen looks up as the front door opens and closes gently and Jared stops just on the other side of the threshold of the living room door, eyeing the scene in front of him.

“Uh, am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” Chris and Chad say at the same time as Steve and Riley say, “No.”

“Just…come and sit down, man,” Jensen urges Jared, fairly confident that the show is almost over. “Chad apparently wants as many witnesses as possible.”

Chris huffs again. “For the last time, I’m not gonna try and deny this in the morning. Christ, what’s it gonna take for you to buy that I’m actually serious right now?”

Chad shrugs. “I don’t know, man, but right now, I just can’t seem to ignore all of your history.”

Jared gives the two quarreling men a wide berth as he comes into the living room to sit on the couch next to Jensen. “Okay, so, can you catch me up here? I’m feeling a bit out of the loop.”

Jensen notices that, despite the acres of space next to him on the couch, Jared has chosen to sit as close to him as public decency will allow, his left side all pressed up against Jensen’s right. It’s a lot distracting and Jensen loses himself to the sensation for a few seconds before he remembers that Jared asked him a question.

“Okay, basically, Chad and Chris slept together last Friday night and then Chris asked Chad to leave the next morning. Chad has been avoiding Chris all week because he doesn’t want to hear Chris tell him that it was just a one-time thing, and Chris has spent all week trying to figure out how to tell Chad that he’s in love with him.”

Jensen cringes when the words leave his mouth and they hang in the air like unexploded bombs while Chris blushes crimson and Chad stares at him with his mouth hanging open.

Jared sniggers. “It’s like a gay version of _Days of Our Lives_ or something.”

“You’re in love with me?” Chad asks quietly, causing Chris to flinch, probably because he knows he’s going to have to answer the question.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says, his voice pitched low. “I don’t do relationships, I never have. So yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this for a while now, that’s actually why I asked you to come over on Friday, but that didn’t exactly go the way I imagined it.”

“And you couldn’t have just…I don’t know, asked me out to dinner or something?”

“We have dinner together all the time,” Chris points out, like it’s something everyone already knew. It’s news to Jensen. “I wanted…I _needed_ it to be different. I just didn’t know what different meant, and then we slept together and the only thing going through my mind the next morning was trying to figure out how to stop me and you from turning into Jared and Jensen.”

Jensen blinks, caught off guard by Chris’ words and he sits up straight on the couch. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hey!” Jared complains. “What the hell has this got to do with me?”

Chris gives them a look that somehow manages to be both scathing and pitiful at the same time. “You two have been in love with each other from the start, before you even started sleeping together, and you’re both too chicken shit to do anything about it and you ended up in this weird sort of place where you each thought the other one only wanted a fuck buddy and neither of you had the balls to try and do anything about it.” He turns back to Chad. “I didn’t want that to happen to us. I didn’t want to pretend that it was just sex.”

“I never pretended it was just sex,” Jensen says loudly, the sudden need to defend his actions taking precedence over his friends.

“If that was true then Jared never would have left,” Misha says from his chair, startling Jensen. He hadn’t even known Misha was awake.

He glares at his friend, who still has his eyes closed, his head pillowed on the arm of the chair. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Misha yawns. “Ask Jared.”

Jensen twists in his seat so that he can see the man who’s sitting next to him. Jared’s looking back at him with a strange look in his eyes, a gamut of emotions swimming in those oh-so-familiar hazel eyes. Guilt and anger and stubbornness and sadness and suddenly, that six week period after Jared said he was leaving four years ago makes a whole lot less sense to Jensen.

His eyes still locked with Jared’s, Jensen shakes his head. They need to talk about this, that much is clear, but there’s no way Jensen’s going to do it with an audience consisting of five of the most outspoken men Jensen has ever met.

“This isn’t about me and Jared right now. We’re supposed to be sorting out Chris and Chad’s mess.”

“Yeah,” Chad agrees. He reaches out and takes Chris’ hand. “But I’ve decided the audience really isn’t necessary.”

There’s a hopeful look on Chris’ face as he allowed Chad to pull him towards the door and Jensen just smiles after him.

At least now he won’t have to give Chris a ride home.

He watches them go until they’re out of sight, listens as the door closes and Chad’s car starts up and pulls out of the driveway. It sounds oddly like a beginning rather than the ending those same sounds meant to Jensen four years ago, even though he hadn’t been awake when Jared left him.

When Jensen’s mind finally returns to the present, he looks up to find three pairs of eyes on him and Jared staring resolutely at his fingernails.

“What?” he asks, looking between Misha, Steve and Riley and back again.

“I believe it’s yours and Jared’s turn now,” Steve says bluntly.

Riley cocks an eyebrow and Misha nods.

“No,” Jensen tells them all decisively. “I’m not doing anything with y’all staring at us like we’re lab rats or something. I don’t need witnesses; I don’t need help burying the body because I don’t wanna kill Jared.”

Riley lets out a little huff of amusement. “No, ‘cause it might be you who winds up dead, right, Jen?”

Jensen grinds his teeth together and points towards the front door. “Out. All of you.”

Steve pouts as he gets to his feet. “Spoilsport.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll hear all about it,” Misha says confidently. “Jensen can’t resist telling Danneel anything, she tells Chad and Chad tells the rest of us.”

“I think Chad’s gonna be tied up for a while,” Riley laughs.

“Hmm, quite,” Misha agrees. “Still, she’ll need to tell someone. I do believe Steve is the next name on her phone tree, so he’ll be able to tell us all by mid-week at least.”

“I hate you,” Jensen spits. “I hate every single one of you, Danneel, too.”

Riley pinches his cheeks. “Aw, baby, now that’s just not true.”

Jensen bats his hands away. “I mean it, we’re done. Get out.”

Riley and Misha grumble to each other as they grab their coats and Misha shoves his feet back into his shoes before they stumble to the door, car keys jingling.

Steve stops in front of Jensen, a hard, determined look in his eyes and Jensen sighs as he looks up at him.

“I already had this lecture from Christian today, thank you. I don’t need you to repeat it.”

Steve shrugs, giving in. “I’d only be repeating the same thing I told you four years ago. I’d only be repeating what you already know.”

Jensen looks away and waits until he hears the front door close behind Steve.

“What the hell was that all about?” Jared asks but Jensen’s nerves get the better of him and he pushes himself up off the couch and races for the kitchen.

 

///

** Chapter 5 **

Jared watches Jensen run and doesn’t try to stop him.

His mind is reeling, trying to process what the hell just happened to him in the last five minutes. Somehow, a fight – or whatever it had been – between Chris and Chad had ended up being more about himself and Jensen.

Chris’ words are still echoing in his mind, the revelation that Jensen was in love with him – _is_ in love with him? – making him question everything he thought he knew about his life and Jensen’s and suddenly everything has been flipped on its head.

Without any sort of conscious thought, Jared pushes himself up off the couch, stalking through to the kitchen with determined steps.

He stands in the doorway for a handful of seconds, watching as Jensen bustles around the room, putting away jars and bottles, wrapping up leftovers of what appears to have been an epic meal that had probably been cooked by Chris or Steve.

“Is it true?” Jared asks without meaning to, watching as Jensen’s shoulders tense up and he pauses for less than a beat before he resumes his cleaning.

“Is what true?” he asks and Jared resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“What Chris said. What Misha said. Is it true?”

Jensen stops what he’s doing, turning to lean against the counter, his arms folded across his chest. “I could ask you the same question.”

Jared bobs his head in agreement. “So ask.”

Jensen looks up, his green eyes sparkling in the fluorescent light of the kitchen but he doesn’t say anything, just looks at Jared, and Jared knows he doesn’t need to ask his question anymore, the answer is written all over Jensen’s face.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Again, Jared knows that the question could be turned back on him but he takes a chance and is rewarded when Jensen heaves a breath.

“It was like Chad, I guess. I didn’t want the ‘you’re a nice guy, Jensen, but I wasn’t really looking for anything serious’ speech.”

Jared frowns. “You really thought I would do that to you? That I _could_ say that to you?”

“I don’t know, and I didn’t really want to take the risk. Having that…knowing that if I just kept my mouth shut I could still have that part of you, was better than risking everything by telling you how I really felt and ending up with nothing at all.” Jensen tightens his arms around his middle, like he’s cold and trying to keep warm.

“You should have said something.” Jared shakes his head. “ _I_ should have said something instead of being just a scared little boy.”

“I was going to tell you,” Jensen says in a quiet voice. “It was Chris’ birthday party, I think. I was just sitting there and I suddenly realized how long we’d been doing…what we were doing. We’d never dated anyone else, never talked about dating anyone else, and I wondered if maybe we should be more. _Could_ be more. I finally plucked up the courage to just come out and ask you if you wanted to go on a date or something, but you spoke up first.”

Guilt floods through Jared’s body when he realizes what Jensen’s talking about. “I told you about Japan.”

Jensen laughs, but it doesn’t sound happy. It’s hollow and empty and Jared cringes at the sound of it.

“I had my answer right there. You didn’t even discuss it with me, just told me you were offered this amazing job in Tokyo and you were taking it. No questions asked. Couldn’t really have been true love for you if you didn’t even consider what you leaving would mean for me.”

“That job was crap,” Jared says softly and Jensen’s head snaps up to stare at him. “It wasn’t any better than the one I had at Sam’s company. In fact it was probably worse. I was way too over qualified for it, fuck, an intern could have handled it and I knew that long before I even signed on the dotted line.”

“I don’t understand,” Jensen says with a shake of his head. “Why would you take a job that was below your pay grade in a foreign country?” He blanches, curling in on himself even more. “Did you want to get away from me that badly that you had to leave the country? Is that what it was?”

“Jesus, Jensen.” Jared rushes across the kitchen to take hold of Jensen’s shoulders. “How could you even think that?”

“Jared, you just told me that you accepted a shitty job thousands of miles away from here, what the hell else am I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to ask me to stay!”

Jensen looks completely mystified and Jared forces himself to take a step back. This isn’t how he wants this conversation to go, but he’s been blindsided by the idea that Jensen could think that Jared just wanted to get away from him. It’s the furthest thing from the truth and Jared just can’t help but do everything he can to make Jensen understand that.

“What does that…what are you…” Jensen can’t seem to form a coherent sentence right now, so Jared takes pity on him and answers the questions he knows Jensen is trying to ask.

“I didn’t need a new job, hell, I didn’t even _want_ a new job. The only thing I did want was the one thing I couldn’t figure out how to get.”

“And what was that?” Jensen asks.

“You, jerk. Try to keep up, will you?”

“Bitch,” Jensen gripes, but there’s not much heat behind the word and he just folds his arms across his chest again and looks away.

Jared takes a deep breath, tries to keep his emotions in check so that he can finally come clean.

“When I heard about the Tokyo job, the last thing I wanted to do was leave you. I was – _am_ – so in love with you, but…we were in that weird holding pattern. We hung out, fucked like bunnies, but it never…it was never a _relationship_. I was always just your friend. Not once did you ever refer to me as your boyfriend or your partner or whatever other romantic name you might have wanted to use.”

“I didn’t know that that was what you wanted,” Jensen mumbles and Jared nods.

“I know, I get that now, I think. But at the time, I just thought that maybe you just needed a push in the right direction. So I took the Tokyo job.”

Jensen looks up at him, his expression saying – loud and clear – that he thinks Jared’s a moron. “How the hell was taking that job supposed to make us admit how we really felt?”

Embarrassed, Jared scratches at the back of his neck. “I admit that it wasn’t the best plan ever.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

“But at the time, it was the only one I could come up with. I thought that if I told you I was leaving, you would realize how much you loved me or needed me and beg me to stay.”

Jensen just blinks at him, like he’s having trouble figuring out what Jared’s trying to say.

Then he bursts out laughing and Jared can feeling himself getting irrationally angry.

“That was your plan?” Jensen manages between his chuckles. “You thought that by telling me you were leaving that I would somehow understand that you didn’t want to leave at all but you just wanted me to figure out that you were in love with me?”

“Well, I didn’t see you coming up with a better plan!”

“Jared, the love of my life had just told me that he was leaving the country, possibly forever and very clearly didn’t want me to go with him. It was taking everything I had not to lock myself away in some dark little room and drink myself to death. In fact, if it wasn’t for Chris, I think I probably would have.”

Jared doesn’t really think about his next move, he just suddenly finds himself in motion, taking a few steps forward until he’s crowding Jensen up against the countertop, both of them pressed together from chest to knees and all of a sudden, Jared realizes that he’s finally _home_.

“Jared,” Jensen says, a token protest as he tries to push Jared away even as his hands fist in Jared’s shirt to pull him closer.

“Just…tell me you don’t want this. Me. _Us._ Tell me you don’t want it and I’ll go. You’ll never have to hear from me again.”

This close, it’s hard to see Jensen’s eye roll, but by the startled breath Jensen lets escape, Jared knows it’s there.

“Jay, I just got done telling you that you’re the love of my fucking life. If you think I’m gonna say ‘no’ now, you’re completely out of your mind.”

Jared pulls away a little, enough so that he can see Jensen clearly. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that since I came home. When you were sober, anyway.” Now that he’s realizing that, he’s wondering where MJ picked it up from, if Jensen spent any sort of time talking about him when he was gone, enough that the nickname rolled out.

He watches, a little fascinated, as Jensen blushes. “There are reasons for that, Jared. Really, really good reasons. Reasons we should really talk about before we take this any further.”

Jared takes a second to consider that, tries to think of any sort of reason why Jensen would refuse to call him by his nickname and if any of those reasons would make Jared reconsider how much he wants to lick and kiss every inch of Jensen’s skin right this second.

He finally decides that, no, none of the reasons he can think of are good enough to make him not want to do that, so he leans back into Jensen’s space, burying his face in Jensen’s neck and inhaling that familiar scent before pressing a kiss to the spot just behind Jensen’s ear.

“It can wait,” he promises with a breathy sigh. “Whatever those reasons are, they can just…wait.”

Jensen looks like he’s going to protest again but Jared doesn’t let him.

Instead, he closes that last few inches of space between them and presses his lips to Jensen’s, kissing him for the first time in four years.

Jared melts into it, melts into the knowledge and the feeling of finally having Jensen in his arms again and he can’t help the smile that stretches his lips when Jensen sighs against him and parts his lips, granting the access that Jared hasn’t even asked for yet.

Jared’s plan to keep this chaste, to start slow and do this right, the way they should have done all those years ago, goes right out the window when Jensen presses himself into Jared’s body, wrapping one arm around Jared’s neck and burying the other in Jared’s hair.

The kiss turns hard then, hot and unrelenting and Jared can already feel Jensen’s erection pressing into his hip and he needs to get Jensen to a bed before they end up going at it on the kitchen floor.

This is supposed to be different; he can’t do the same things they did back then.

“Where’s Molly?” Jared mumbles against Jensen’s lips as he pulls the older man towards the door, trying to get both of them up the stairs without untangling their tangled limbs. It feels weird, knowing that they have to think about Jensen’s daughter now, that they’ll have to learn how to be quiet, because Jared knows from experience that the last thing they are is quiet.

“At Danni’s.” Jensen presses the words to the skin of Jared’s throat. “She stays there most Saturday night, spends the weekend. She’s the closest thing to a mother that I can give MJ. She needs that.”

Jared grins and files the information away, both the fact that Jensen’s daughter hardly ever spends Saturday night in the house – so they can be as not quiet as they want – and the fact that MJ’s mother – whoever she is or was – will never, ever be a part of her life.

For some reason, it makes Jared feel a whole lot better about this.

 They finally make it to Jensen’s bedroom, and despite the fact that he hasn’t been in the room since the morning he left, Jared doesn’t take the time to look around to see what’s changed. Instead, he toes out of his Chucks and grabs the edge of Jensen’s t-shirt, running his hands underneath and across Jensen’s chest even as he pushes the material up until Jensen has to remove his lips from Jared’s jawline to take the garment off.

Their jeans go next, followed by Jared’s t-shirt, and then Jared’s fighting with his socks while Jensen laughs from where he’s lounging on the bed in nothing but a pair of white boxer briefs, his legs falling open like an engraved invitation.

Jared steps out of his underwear and smirks when Jensen’s laughter dies in his throat. He crawls up the bed, kissing his way up Jensen’s legs until his lips graze Jensen’s erection, stretching the white material so tight that it leaves nothing to the imagination.

Not that Jared needs his imagination. He’s seen Jensen naked so many times, kissed every inch of his body in the past that he knows it better than he knows his own.

Except, this time, it’s different. He might have been here before, he might know the plains and valleys of Jensen’s body by heart, but all those other times he’s been in this position, Jared always just assumed that it meant more to him than it did to Jensen.

He was purposefully trying to remember every little detail, every hitched breath, because he didn’t know if each time would be his last, if Jensen would suddenly tell him that he’d met someone and Jared would never get to experience it again and all he would have would be memories and his imagination.

But this…this is different. They’re both on the same page now; they both know that this is the start of something, something that Jared hopes will be pretty great. Something he hopes he’ll have for the rest of his life.

Hooking his fingers underneath the waistband of Jensen’s boxers, Jared slowly pulls them down, kissing each piece of exposed skin as he goes until they’re low enough down Jensen’s legs that he can kick them off the rest of the way and Jared can finally get his mouth on Jensen’s gorgeous cock.

Jensen lets out a strangled cry when Jared sucks him all the way into his mouth, until the head of Jensen’s cock is hitting the back of his throat. He throws an arm over Jensen’s waist when the smaller man’s hips start bucking of their own accord and can’t help the smile that stretches his lips even further when Jensen starts to babble.

“Jesus, Jared. How the hell could I have forgotten how good your mouth is? Fuck, gonna kill me. Seriously, one of these days you’re just gonna suck my brain right outta my dick.”

Jared has to pull off to breathe, because the idea that this is a permanent thing now is making his head feel a little funny.

He reaches up to suck on just the head of Jensen’s cock, dipping his tongue into the slit, when Jensen pulls him sharply by the hair, causing him to look up.

“Oh, God, if you keep that up, this is gonna be over long before it starts.”

Jared grins. “What’s the matter? Your recovery time not what it used to be, old man?”

“I’ll show you who’s an old man.” Jensen tugs harder, forcing Jared to move upwards until Jensen can take his lips in a bruising kiss, his tongue fucking into Jared’s mouth without hesitation.

“Fuck,” Jared gasps. “Tell me you have some lube in here somewhere?”

“Box under the bed,” Jensen tells. When Jared pulls back a little to give him a questioning look, Jensen blushes. “What? I have an inquisitive daughter. Have to keep certain things away from prying eyes.”

Jared lets out a deep chuckle and kisses Jensen once more before he rolls off towards the side of the bed, looking for whatever sort of box Jensen keeps his toys in.

“Wait.” Jensen grabs him by the elbow and Jared turns back to give him a questioning look. “Do…uh, do you have a condom?”

Jared laughs again. “Uh, no?”

“Me neither.” Jensen seems to deflate a little, like no condom means they can’t take this any further. “I haven’t had sex in four years and I wasn’t really expecting this to happen tonight so I’m not really prepared.”

Jared sits back on his heels, thinking over what Jensen’s just said. “I haven’t slept with anyone since you.”

Jensen blinks, like the statement startled him. “Me…me neither.”

Jared nods. “Alright, so…” he trails off, swallows hard. Jensen’s soft words have just confirmed that Jensen really did sleep with some unknown woman while Jared was still in town and got her pregnant, but since his talk with Genevieve, the news doesn’t hurt the way Jared had feared it would. Mostly he’s just confused and frustrated that Jensen would claim to be in love with Jared and then sleep with someone else, and he wonders what he did to lose Jensen’s trust like that.

“So…what?” Jensen prods when Jared doesn’t say anything further and he gives himself a shake.

“So…neither of us has slept with anyone else, and we know we were clean back then, so…we don’t need a condom.” Jared is certainly not planning on sleeping with anyone else any time soon. Or ever, if he has his way.

But Jensen’s shaking his head. “No. No, Jared. We need a condom. We just…we need a condom.”

Jared cocks his head, confused by Jensen’s sudden change in attitude. “Why?”

“We just…we just do, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay, Jensen. What, are you planning on running out and hooking up with the first guy you meet or something? If we’re both clean and we both know that this is it, we’re in this together for the long haul, then tell me why we need a condom.”

“Because I don’t want to get pregnant again right now, okay?”

It’s sort of surreal to watch all the color drain from Jensen’s face, but Jared can’t really take the time to appreciate it because he’s having a really hard time processing Jensen’s words.

“Pregnant?” he says in a strangled voice.

“Oh, God,” Jensen breathes, “let me up, I have to….move!” He untangles his legs from Jared’s and pushes himself off the bed, pulling on boxers that Jared vaguely realizes are his and not Jensen’s.

Before the waistband hides it, Jared can just about make out a sliver of a scar situated low on Jensen’s abdomen, and Jared knows, without question, that he’s looking at the scar from a C-section. His friend Kim had shown off her scar more times than Jared was really comfortable with.

Jared blinks and finds Jensen staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, like his whole world has just crashed down around his ears.

“MJ…” Jared doesn’t know if it’s a statement or a question, but Jensen nods anyway and suddenly, Jared feels sick. He jumps from the bed without another glance at Jensen, scooping up his jeans and shirt and racing for the door. He doesn’t know if Jensen calls after him, just stops in the hallway long enough to pull on his jeans and then races down the stairs as he deals with his t-shirt.

He’s at the front door before he realizes he doesn’t have any shoes on, but he doesn’t bother going back for any, just spots Jensen’s car keys on the table by the front door and takes them without another thought.

Jared’s in the car and pulling out of the driveway before he knows what’s hit him.

 

///

 

Jensen doesn’t know how long he stands there, starting at the door Jared just ran through. The clock on his nightstand tells him it’s been over an hour, but Jensen thinks it’s a big fat liar.

Jared would have come back by now if it had been that long, right?

Because…because Jared wouldn’t just run away, he wouldn’t just run out and leave Jensen and MJ all alone.

Because that only happens in Jensen’s nightmares.

Except, Jared isn’t coming back and Jensen is still standing in the middle of his bedroom in a pair of boxers that don’t even belong to him.

This isn’t a dream and Jared is gone.

Jensen crosses to the phone at the side of the bed and hits speed dial number three, tapping his foot impatiently as he waits for the call to connect.

_“Jen?”_ Danneel sounds pretty awake for it being so late at night.

“Um…” Jensen pauses. He doesn’t even really know what possessed him to make the call in the first place and now he doesn’t know what to say.

_“Jensen?”_ Her voice is worried now, an octave higher than her usual gravelly timbre. _“What’s going on?”_

“Um…” Jensen says again, buying himself some time to think of something. The last thing he wants is to cry and whine to his best friend, especially not through a phone line. He already feels like a girl for being so upset in the first place.

_“Jensen!”_ Danneel yells and Jensen blurts out the first thing that comes into his head.

“Can you bring MJ home?”

_“What? Right now?”_

Now that he’s said it, he realizes that his daughter is the only thing he wants – needs – right now. He needs her here, needs to hold her, watch her, know that she’s safe and loved and to make sure that she knows that she’s the most important thing in Jensen’s whole world.

She’s the only thing in Jensen’s world.

“Yes, I need…I need her here. I just want her here, please, Danni.”

_“Jensen, it’s after midnight. She’s asleep,”_ Danneel tells him, her voice saying loud and clear that he should know this. _“I’m not gonna wake her up now.”_

Jensen nods. Logically, he understands what she’s saying and he agrees with her and he has no right to demand she be woken up and brought home. But logic isn’t playing much of a part in Jensen’s thought processes right now, and while it might be selfish for Jensen to try to make Danneel do this, he just can’t find it in himself to care.

“Please,” he tries again, hearing the begging tone his voice has taken on.

_“Jensen, you don’t really sound like you’re in the right frame of mind to be looking after MJ right now anyway, even if I did agree to this kinda ridiculous demand.”_

“Oh,” he says quietly, because, yeah, she has a point, he’s not exactly firing on all cylinders right now. He wouldn’t have made this call in the first place if he was.

_“Jensen, what’s going on? You don’t…you don’t sound good.”_

“Jared…” Jensen says quietly, not even really aware that he’s even speaking.

_“Jared? What about him?”_ She gasps. _“Oh, God, did you tell him about MJ?”_

“He left.”

Danneel sucks in another gasp of air and Jensen has just had enough already. He doesn’t need to hear her attempts to placate him, he doesn’t need to hear her tell him that everything will be okay; he just has to give it time.

He just needs his daughter.

“Please, Danni, can you just bring MJ home? I need her here.”

_“It’s after midnight,”_ she repeats, like she’s some sort of fucking pumpkin that can’t go outside after midnight.

“I don’t care, I don’t care about any of that, please just bring her home to me.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line and Jensen’s just almost out of patience. He’s just about to get into the car and drive to Danneel’s to get MJ himself when she lets out a sigh.

_“Alright, let me just get her things together. I’ll be at yours in about thirty minutes.”_

Jensen lets out the breath he doesn’t realize he’s holding. “Thank you,” he says honestly and hangs up before she has time to say anything.

Jensen takes a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt from his closet before he leaves the room. Moping isn’t getting him anywhere. Jared left, just like Jensen always knew he would, so now he has to start really moving on and finally come to terms with the fact that Jared really isn’t going to be a part of his or MJ’s life.

Heading downstairs and out of the bedroom that still smells faintly of Jared – but that could also be because Jensen’s wearing his underwear, but he’s not dwelling on that – Jensen decides that he needs something to take his mind off this whole thing for a little while before Danneel and MJ get here and he gets back to the clearing up that Jared distracted him from earlier.

It works for a while and he gets so lost in the monotonous task that he doesn’t hear the car in the driveway, doesn’t realize Danneel is here until there’s a soft tap on the front door.

Danneel’s still in her nightclothes, plaid pajama pants peeking out from beneath a black trench coat. She doesn’t look tired or like she was just woken up, but she certainly doesn’t look happy at being dragged outside in the middle of the night.

But Jensen doesn’t care, because she has his daughter cradled in her arms and he doesn’t even spare her a glance as he reaches out to take her.

MJ’s still asleep and she shuffles gently as he pulls her close, her head resting on his chest and her legs around his waist.

“What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jensen says and it sounds repetitive.

“Yes, it does, tell me.”

“He found out that he’s MJ’s father and he left. End of story.”

“Well, what did he say? Did he say when he’d be back?”

Jensen sighs loudly. “There was no exchange, Danni. He. Said. Nothing. Don’t you get that?”

Danneel gasps. “He just…he just left?”

Jensen feels the weight of his emotions suddenly pressing down on him and he can’t do this right now.

“Danni, it’s late, just…go home.”

“Jen, we need to talk about this.”

“No, we don’t. This is it, it’s over.”

“He stole your car. I don’t think it’s as over as you’d like to think.”

Jensen pauses for less than a second, but then MJ squirms in his arms and he needs to get her inside. “I’ll call the insurance people on Monday. Goodnight, Danni.”

He knows she wants to say something more, but he closes the door in her face before she can get any words out and he’ll apologize tomorrow when everything in his world starts making sense again.

He learned how to live without Jared once before, he can sure as hell do it again.

He makes his way upstairs, whispering soothing words into MJ’s ear as he goes until he reaches her room. He doesn’t even pause outside the door to his own room – it’s tainted now, dirty almost and he needs to change the sheets at least before he even thinks about taking his daughter in there again.

There’s an old, overstuffed chair in the corner of MJ’s room that Jensen used to use when he was still nursing her. He hasn’t taken it away yet, because that would be like admitting that his little girl really is growing up, but he’s thankful for it now. It’s not the most comfortable place in the world to sleep, but it’s far from the first time he’s done it. He takes a blanket from the end of MJ’s bed and settles down with his daughter in his lap, her head resting on his chest. He presses a kiss to her soft brown curls and tries to get comfortable.

He knows it’s going to be a long night.

 

///

** Chapter 6 **

It’s two and a half hours before Jared realizes where he’s driving to, and that’s only because he spots the sign for San Antonio when he changes lanes on the highway.

He’s not thinking clearly, his mind a tangled mess of confusion and he can’t seem to hold on to a single thought and see it through to completion.

Jensen – pregnant – MJ – no mom.

It’s like a multi-car pile-up on the highway and Jared, Jensen and MJ are right in the middle of it.

A car honks, harsh and loud in the stillness of the night and Jared is jolted out of his thoughts just in time to see that he hasn’t been paying attention, the car drifting out of the lane and he briefly wonders if the other driver had been honking at him in warning or maybe even annoyance.

Determined, Jared empties his mind, concentrating on nothing but the car beneath him, going into auto pilot as he follows the directions the rest of the way home. He should know this route by heart, but four years and the last week have driven everything about the familiar journey from his mind and now Jared has to rely on the signs to guide him.

It’s another three hours before he’s pulling into the driveway of his parents’ house, but it’s not until he kills the engine and listens to it tick as it cools down in the silence of the neighborhood that Jared realizes how late it is – or early, depending on your perspective.

Everyone in the house – well, his parents, seeing as how they’re the only ones in the house now – will be asleep and Jared is loathe to wake them just because he’s having a hard time dealing with the fact that he’s a father and no one bothered to tell him.

Jesus, he’s a _father_.

Still not dwelling on it, Jared gets out of Jensen’s car, not bothering to lock it behind him, and treks across the front lawn, crouching down before a small rock that sits against the honest-to-God white picket fence. He picks it up, digging into the dirt beneath it with his fingers until he finds the key that Megan buried there when she was in middle school because she was always losing hers.

Walking back to the front door, Jared notices that the grass is wet and he figures it must have rained at some point. Then he notices that his feet are still bare and he feels slightly foolish for running out of Jensen’s house without any shoes.

Shit, Jensen. God, this was all too much for Jared’s mind to process.

Letting himself into his childhood home, Jared ignores the stairs, making his way to the downstairs bathroom to wash the dirt of his hands and feet and then throwing himself onto the couch in the living room.

It’s just, it’s too much, all at once, and he thought that already, didn’t he? He thinks it bears repeating and now he’s talking to himself inside his own head and he blames the late hour.

That and the fact that he has a daughter, one who’s three years old and came from Jensen because Jensen can get pregnant. Jared got Jensen pregnant and Jensen didn’t bother to tell him.

MJ is his daughter. That same thought spins around in his head as the sun comes up and he realizes he’s been sitting there, without moving, for more than two hours.

He left Jensen standing practically naked in his bedroom almost seven hours ago.

“Sherri!”

The voice startles him and Jared turns to see his father standing in the living room doorway, staring at him with a fond expression.

“What? God, Gerry, do you have to be so loud so early in the morning?”

Gerry ignores her. “Come find out why your middle child is sitting in the living room in the dark. I’m gonna put on the coffee.”

Jared listens to the sounds of his mother making her way downstairs, grumbling under her breath as she goes.

“I just love how, when there’s a problem or they did something wrong, they’re always _my_ children. But the second one of them does something great, they’re _his_ children. Lord, give me strength not to kill that man.”

Jared can’t even manage his usual chuckle at the familiar argument between his mom and dad and instead he just keeps his eyes on the doorway, waiting for his mother to appear with her usual, beaming smile firmly in place.

The smile is there when she steps into the room and closes the door behind her, but when Jared doesn’t smile back, it vanishes instantly.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sherri asks quickly, her hurried steps quickly taking her across the room until she drops down onto the coffee table in front of Jared.

“Nothing,” he answers quietly, “nothing’s wrong, I swear.”

Well, nothing’s wrong, exactly, but things aren’t exactly right either.

“Then what are you doing here?”

Jared shrugs, struggling to find the right words. “Just…wanted to come visit.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Just felt the urge, I guess. Stayed down here, didn’t want to wake you guys up.”

She waves her hand dismissively. “You know you don’t have to worry about anything like that.” She takes a look around the room. “Where are your things? Used to be, when you came home to visit, you brought nothing but a suitcase full of dirty laundry. I know you’re a responsible adult now, but am I going to have a flash back?”

“Things…” Jared repeats softly, suddenly at a loss.

“Yes, you know, clothes, underwear, a jacket.” Sherri glances down at her son’s feet, then gives him a pointed look. “Shoes.”

Jared swallows hard. “I left in kind of a hurry. It was…a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Incident?”

“Did you and Jensen have a fight? I thought you came home to try to work things out with him?”

“I did,” Jared confirms. “And it wasn’t a fight, exactly. I don’t even really know what it was.”

Sherri chews on her lower lip for a second as she regards him, peering at him intently, like she’ll see everything she needs to know written on his face.

Finally she gives up and takes a deep breath. “Alright, Jared, you’re scaring me a little here. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

Jared pauses for less than a second before he reaches for his cellphone in the front pocket of his jeans and brings up the photo of MJ he’d taken as she drank her milkshake, straw snug between her lips. He passes the phone to his mother and then sinks back into the couch.

She studies the photo carefully, as if she’s going to be quizzed on how many freckles MJ has.

“She’s beautiful,” she says at last, handing the phone back. “Who is she?”

Jared doesn’t take the phone, just looks into his mother’s familiar eyes. “She’s my daughter.”

Sherri drops the phone and Jared’s heart skips a beat. Saying it out loud has suddenly made it all so very, very real.

“What?” she screeches as she scrambles to pick up the phone. “But…but you’re gay! You always insisted that girls didn’t do anything for you, that they weren’t your thing.”

“They aren’t my thing.”

“Then…how? I don’t understand. Did you adopt and this is your unique way of telling me? By giving me a heart attack?”

“No adoption,” Jared confirms. “Jensen.”

He doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t elaborate, just stares at his mother until understanding lights up her eyes.

“Jensen’s a birth-father.”

Jared chokes on his tongue. “There’s a name for it?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, of course there’s a name for it, Jared. Please don’t tell me this is the first time you’re hearing of this?”

Jared looks at her with wide eyes. “Well, yeah, of course I’ve heard of it, but I mean, I didn’t think it would be much of an issue in Podunk, Texas!”

Sherri rolls her eyes. “Richardson is hardly some backwater town, Jared. Honestly.”

“It’s not exactly Los Angeles,” Jared pouts.

“I take it this means Jensen didn’t tell you?”

“No!”

Sherri narrows her eyes at him. “Did Jensen know he was a birth-father?”

“I don’t know. I mean, could he have known? Is there…is there a way you can tell?”

His mother nods. “It was big news for a while, when it was confirmed that unborn babies might have been affected by the exposure. There were a lot of tests done, on both boys and girls, but people soon realized that it was the boy babies who were the ones affected. Nothing that would have an impact on most of them. Straight men don’t really have to worry about whether they can get pregnant or not. Gay men, on the other hand…” she trails off with a shrug and Jared just stares.

“Was…” Jared clears his throat. “Were all boys tested when they were born?”

Sherri cocks her head to the left, like she’s trying to think back to that time. “I think the parents were given a choice. I don’t remember it being mandatory at any point. Of course, your father and I had both you and Jeff tested.”

Jared’s eyes grow impossibly wider. “Seriously? And? Am I?”

“Oh, no, sweetie,” she says soothingly. “I would have told you if you were as soon as you told us you were gay. Like I said, it’s only something that can really affect a gay man.” She shrugs, but her eyes are gleaming with mischief. “Jeff, on the other hand…”

“No way! Really?!”

“He doesn’t know. Unlike you, there was no reason to tell him.” Sherri pauses for a second, a kind smile on her face. “Do you think Jensen knew before he got pregnant?”

Jared takes a second to think about it, but after a few seconds, he gives up. “I honestly don’t know. I mean, before I left, we weren’t…we thought we were on different pages, maybe even reading from different books completely. We never talked about the future or our relationship or anything that could be seen as being remotely personal or pertinent to our lives. He might have known and just thought that I wouldn’t be interested in…knowing that.”

Sherri huffs. “I swear, you two boys need me to bang your heads together.”

Jared manages a small smile. “Chris and Chad sort of inadvertently did that earlier tonight.” He winces. “Last night, I mean. God, everything’s sort of blurring together right now.”

Sherri sighs. “I can’t imagine what was going through his head when he found out he was pregnant.” She gives her son a slanted look, like she’s afraid of how he’ll react to what she’s going to say next. “Are you one hundred per cent sure that she’s is yours?”

Jared barks a humorless laugh. “Right now, that’s the one thing I am sure off.”

Sherri smiles, like that was the answer she wanted, and looks at Jared’s phone again. “She’s got your eyes. And dimples.”

Jared frowns, because he’d honestly never noticed that before. Of course, it wasn’t something he was looking for before either, so it’s no wonder he didn’t see the uncanny resemblance.

 “She looks more like you than she does Jensen,” Sherri points out. “I can’t help but feel that that’s a little unfair.”

“How come?”

“Well, think about it. He must have been scared out of his mind when he was going through all that. I know how terrifying being pregnant can be for a woman; I can’t imagine what it must have felt like for a man, especially when you were completely oblivious.”

Jared can feel his anger rising, anger that he’s been ignoring since he jumped into Jensen’s car. “And whose fault is that? I was in the dark because Jensen left me there. He kept my daughter from me for four years and you’re all ‘poor Jensen’, really?”

“He was probably scared out of his mind, Jared, and who could blame him? He had no way of knowing how you would react. You said it yourself; the two of you never even talked about a future together, never mind kids. How was he supposed to know how you would react?”

“That is so not the point, Mom. He should have told me, he should have known that I would have been there for him, done the right thing.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what he was afraid of, you _doing the right thing_.”

Jared blinks. “Okay, that made absolutely no sense to me. What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t suppose he would have been too happy with the idea of you only coming home because you thought you had to be a part of the little girl’s life. Does he even know how you really feel about him?”

“I told him last night. We were working things out when I found out about MJ.”

“MJ,” Sherri says, like she’s testing out the name. “And after he told you? What did you say?”

Jared gives his mother a guilty looks before he averts his eyes to the floor.

Sherri gasps. “Jared Padalecki, you ran out and left that poor boy?!”

“I was freaking out, okay? I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing to Jensen at the time.”

“You realize that this was probably another reason why he never told you,” she points out.

“What reason?”

“That you wouldn’t want anything to do with your own daughter and would turn your back on her.”

 Jared scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. He would have never thought that.”

“Jared, he told you-”

“He didn’t tell me,” Jared interjects. “He just sort of let something slip and the truth kinda just spilled out.”

“It makes no difference,” Sherri assures him. “You found out that Jensen gave birth to your daughter and instead of talking about it, you ran away.”

“I didn’t run away!” Jared tries to argue, but it sounds pathetic even to his own ears.

“You don’t have any shoes on!” Sherri exclaims. She sighs. “Lord, what must that boy be thinking? He must be going out of his mind.”

“That’s not…I mean, he knows I’m coming back. He has to know that. I just needed some air, some time to think.”

Sherri shakes her head in what looks to Jared to be exasperation or annoyance. “What was there to think about? Do you not want kids? Do you not love Jensen now that you know he’s capable of having your children?”

“No!” Jared cries. He back tracks. “I mean, of course I still love him, nothing could change that, especially not the fact that he gave birth to my daughter.”

“Then why, Jared? Why did you run?”

“I don’t…I don’t know, okay? I was a little bit shocked. He knows I’m coming back.” It bears repeating, really, because Jared doesn’t really understand why Jensen wouldn’t expect him to come home.

“Did you tell him that?” his mother asks and Jared has to shake his head. “Do you say anything at all?”

“I’d just found out I have a daughter, Mom, I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

“Clearly!”

The living room door opens and Jared’s dad comes in carrying a tray full of coffee cups.

“Your son is an idiot,” Sherri declares.

Gerry chuckles. “ _My_ son.”

“Yes,” she snaps.

Jared groans. “God, why couldn’t he have just told me when he first found out he was pregnant?”

Gerry blinks. “Who’s pregnant?”

“Jensen was,” Jared says softly. “A while ago. He had a girl.”

Gerry hums noncommittally. “Is it yours?”

Jared nods in confirmation and his mom passes his dad the cellphone and the picture of MJ.

“Meet your granddaughter,” she says, a bite in her tone that Jared knows is directed at him.

Gerry practically beams. “What’s her name?”

“MJ. Well, Molly, really, but Jensen calls her MJ, I don’t know why, really. She’s…she’s great, and I thought that before I found out she was mine.”

“Don’t you think you should give Jensen a call?” Sherri suggests. “Straighten this all out?”

“I can’t…I can’t do this over the phone. Can I?”

“If you’d called him from Tokyo you might not even be in this mess.”

Jared throws his head back against the couch cushions. “I know that! And I also know that you think that if I’d never gone to Tokyo in the first place that Jensen and I would probably be together right now.”

Sherri nods. “Well, yes, I do think that.”

“And if I’d done that, Molly might not exist at all.”

“You can’t know that,” Gerry says.

“The only time Jensen and I ever slept together without using protection was the night before I got on a plane for Japan.”

Gerry gives an audible face-palm. “Please, Jared, your mother and I really don’t need details of your sex life. It’s a little disturbing to know that any of my children are having sex, I don’t really want to discuss it.”

Sherri throws her husband a dirty look before she turns that same look back to her son. “Or you could have the family you’ve always wanted.”

Jared jumps to his feet. “I have the family I always wanted.”

“Of course, which is why you ran out in the middle of the night without uttering a single word or bothering to stop to put on your shoes.”

Jared feels all the wind go out of his sails and he glances at his parents, holding their gazes. “I have to go home.” He heads for the door, only for someone to grab him by the back of his t-shirt.

“Oh, no you don’t,” his father says, pulling him away and depositing him back on the couch. “You haven’t slept all night and you’ve just driven for five hours straight. No way am I letting you drive another five hours home now.”

“But, I have to get back to Jensen. I have to…explain, see MJ,” Jared tries.

“You’re going to get some sleep is what you’re going to do,” Gerry orders. “Then you’re going to take a shower and have something to eat. _Then_ you can drive back and see Jensen and Molly.”

“But-”

“No, Jared. I don’t want you to find out you’re a father only to get yourself killed in a horrific car accident on the same day.”

“Your dad’s right, Jared,” Sherri presses. “Go on, go lie down. I’ll have some lunch ready for you in a few hours and then you can head back to Jensen.”

She doesn’t look so mad at him anymore, and deep down, Jared knows his parents are right. But the itch to get back to Jensen is almost more than he can stand.

Still, he lets his dad pull him to his feet and direct him towards the stairs and he trudges down the hallway to his childhood bedroom and collapses face first into the pillows.

He’s asleep before he even has a chance to take of his jeans.

 

///

** Chapter 7 **

MJ sleeps late the next morning – well, late for her, anyway and Jensen knows that’s his fault. It’s after seven-thirty when she finally starts to stir, blinking up at him with hazel eyes filled with sleep and confusion.

Jensen tries to find it in himself to feel guilty, but he can’t. MJ is the most important thing in his life, and last night he’d needed to make sure that she was okay, that she was right where he needed her to be, and if he had to get Danneel to drive across town in the middle of the night to do that, well…that’s just what it was going to take.

He’ll send her flowers or chocolates or something to make up for it.

“Where’s Aunt Danni?” MJ mumbles around a yawn and Jensen finally feels a stab of that guilt, but it’s gone before it can really take hold and he shifts MJ on his lap so that he see her better.

“Well, MJ, see, last night, Daddy got real lonely when Jared left so I called Aunt Danni and she said I could have you back for a little while, just so that I could give you lots of cuddles to make me feel a little bit better.”

“Jared left?” MJ asks and Jensen forces himself to smile.

“He…he went out to run some errands.”

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

MJ stares at him for a while before she surges up, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug. Jensen hugs her back, getting lost in the feeling of having his daughter right where she should be, before he pulls back.

“So, listen, I know I can’t cook like Uncle Chris and Uncle Steve – no rainbow pancakes from me – but what do you say to some waffles and we can camp out on the couch all day and watch whatever movies and cartoons you want?”

“Yeah!” she squeals and Jensen laughs at the sound and thinks, yeah, they’re going to be okay.

She wraps her arms around his neck again and he balances her on his hip when he stands up, carrying her downstairs easily, throwing her onto the couch just to hear her giggle again.

They eat waffles smothered in maple syrup as they watch _The Jungle Book_ and MJ lets out a scandalized little giggle when he tells her that they won’t be getting dressed today.

She changes all of her dolls and Barbies into their own nightclothes and lines them up on the coffee table as Jensen switches the movie for _Robin Hood_.

He’s sprawled out all over the couch with MJ at the other end, thinking that he should probably take MJ out to the backyard to play for a little while as the credits roll on _One Hundred and One Dalmatians_ when the front door opens.

Jensen would be surprised that his friends have decided to check up on him, except that they’re his friends, so he isn’t.

He is surprised, however, when it’s Chris and Chad who walk through the door and not Danneel like he’d anticipated.

 “Guys, go home,” Jensen says before they can speak. “We’re fine.”

Chad blows him off. “Who says we’re here to see you? We’re here to kidnap Miss Mojo.”

MJ sits up, looking interested and Jensen knows, whatever this is, he’s lost already.

“See, Aunt Danni is at Uncle Chris’ house, and she’s very sad, you see, because you left her all alone last night.”

“Daddy was lonely when Jared left,” MJ tells him and Jensen at least has the grace to blush when Chris and Chad throw him an eerily similar look. Still, neither of them calls him out on it, so he figures they at least understand.

“I know, but look, you’ve made him all better now. He’s even smiling and everything. You wanna help me make Aunt Danni smile again?”

Jensen sighs. “Guys, you don’t have to do this. Really. MJ’s fine where she is. We’re both fine. I know you really don’t want to be here.”

“We just figured you needed some time to yourself,” Chris says, speaking for the first time since he entered Jensen’s house. “This is probably a lot to deal with.”

“Not really much to deal with. I just have to get used to the fact that he’s not gonna be here anymore. I did it once, I can do it again.”

“Hey, MJ,” Chad says suddenly, “why don’t we go pick out some clothes for you take to Uncle Chris’ with you?”

MJ looks to her father and all Jensen can do is give her a tight nod. She looks so excited at the thought of spending the day with her aunt and uncles – even though it’s something she does more than regularly – that Jensen doesn’t have the heart to tell her she can’t go. It’s selfish to keep her with him just because he wants to cling to the one solid thing in his world right now.

“Cool!” Chad crows like an eight year old and leads MJ up the stairs, probably to make sure she doesn’t pick an outfit that’s going to blind anyone who looks at her.

“You need to stop thinking as MJ’s father for one second and start thinking like Jensen again,” Chris says as soon as they’re gone. “Yes, you’re a father now, but you didn’t stop being a person when that happened. You’re allowed to get mad and fuck up every once in a while. And I’m sure you’d rather do that when MJ isn’t around to witness it.

Jensen just skips right by that. “How did you know?”

“Danni called us,” Chris confesses softly. “She said Jared left.”

Jensen nods. “Last night.”

“Yeah, but clearly not before he got what he wanted from you.” Chris rakes his gaze over Jensen and Jensen realizes he’s probably got more than one hickey visible on his neck.

“We didn’t exactly get that far.”

“You wanna tell me what happened?” Chris asks as Jensen pushes himself up from his sprawl on the couch so that Chris can sit down.

Jensen shrugs. “Not much to tell. He figured out that he’s MJ’s father and he bolted. End of story.”

Chris squints at him. “And…you’re okay with that?”

“No, actually, Chris, I’m not okay with that. In fact, it’s taking everything I have not to crawl into a hole and die of humiliation. Is that what you wanna hear?”

“Come on, man,” Chris tries.

“No,” Jensen interrupts. “No, you can’t…you can’t coddle me and baby me. I have to get over this. I have a daughter to raise; I have to forget about Jared. I did it once, I can do it again.” Maybe if he says it enough times he’ll start to believe it.

“Yeah, but that was before Jared knew everything,” Chris points out. “That was when he was still in the dark and you at least had some hope that it would all work out.”

“And now I don’t have that,” Jensen finishes for him. “Jared’s gone. It’s really over. Maybe now I can finally do what Danneel’s been telling me to do and move on, find someone else who’ll want to date a freak of nature.”

Chris chokes on his tongue. “You’re not a freak of nature, Jensen. Don’t even start with that shit.”

“Chris, I’m a man who is capable of getting knocked up. There are still people out there who think men like me should be put to death or locked up. Hell, my fucking brother is one of them, and maybe Jared is, too. It’s not like the subject ever came up.”

Chris rolls his eyes. “You ever think that Jared maybe just needs some time to get his head around all of this? I mean, he’s just found out that he’s a father of a three year old and you’ve been keeping him in the dark for years. That shit can mess with your head, son.”

Jensen folds his arms across his chest. “If he was freaking out he would have said something. He just left.”

Chris nods. “Yeah? Well, all his things are still here and he seems to have stolen your car. So I wouldn’t go joining those online dating sites just yet.”

Jensen blinks. “His things are still here?”

“Checked the closet he stashed them in when I got here. Everything’s right where he left it.”

“Maybe he’ll just send his brother to get it.”

“God, Jensen, will you just stop being so pessimistic?”

“I’m not being pessimistic, I’m being realistic. There’s a difference.”

“Not really.”

Jensen rolls his eyes. “What are you even doing here, man? I thought you and Chad would have been locked up for weeks until you got it all out of your systems?”

Chris shrugs. “Get what out of our systems? This isn’t something that I can just fuck away, Jensen, and Chad isn’t one of those sleazy types I picked up at some dive bar. This is it. I’m hoping he won’t be out of my system for long time yet.”

Jensen stares at him. “Who are you and what the hell have you done with my best friend?”

Chris shoves him and Jensen manages a laugh and he thinks that, yeah, things might not be perfect, but he’ll get by, just like he did before.

Chad and MJ choose that moment to return, a _My Little Pony_ suitcase trailing behind them, and MJ makes a beeline for her dolls, deciding who she’s taking with her.

Chad grins. “What can I say? He needed a man like me to make him settle down once and for all.”

Jensen groans, but he can’t help his smile. His friends deserve to be happy, and if he has to watch them make goo-goo eyes at each other, well, it’s a small price to pay.

“That’s just disturbing. I’m disturbed at what you could be exposing my child to.”

Still doesn’t mean he’s not going to give them a hard time about it.

Chris and Chad just grin, not rising to the bait and Chris holds out MJ’s coat so that she can slip her arms into it. “Come on, before Aunt Danni starts poking her nose around my place and finds stuff she really has no business seeing.”

Jensen reaches forward and grabs MJ by the hand. “Right, that’s it, she’s definitely not going anywhere with you.”

“Daddy!” MJ squeals, like she thinks Jensen’s serious.

“You just need some perspective, Jen,” Chris says, all hint of teasing gone from his voice. “You might be MJ’s father now, but you’re still just Jensen, and you need to learn that it’s okay to want some things for yourself. You deserve to be happy, too, and if Jared makes you happy, then that’s okay.”

“You seem to be forgetting that Jared isn’t here.”

“He loves you,” Chris tells him confidently, “he’ll be back.”

Chad grins. “See? Maybe there’s still hope.”

Jensen shoves at both of them. “Get out of here.”

Chris narrows his eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, really, really sure. I just…I just need some time.” Now that he’s got the option, it would be nice to have a little time, just to get his head back on straight, to learn how to live without Jared again. He already did it once; it can’t be that hard to do it again.

And there he is, repeating himself all over again. Maybe a drink isn’t such a bad idea.

“Alright, well, we’re gonna be on Mojo watch for the next few days,” Chad tells him. “Just until you calm down. I know this probably calls for a lot of alcohol. I know that’s what I did.”

“Chad…” Chris starts but Chad cuts him off.

“Water. Bridge. Under. We’re good, baby.”

Chris beams and Jensen feels queasy.

“Okay, now you really have to go. Thank you for taking MJ, but you can just bring her back in time for dinner if you want.”

Chad shakes his head. “Nah, we’ve got all planned out. Not gonna let it go to waste just because you’re being a stubborn fool.”

“You can pick her up at preschool tomorrow if you want, but we’re good for a few days if you really want.”

Chad wiggles an eyebrow in what Jensen thinks is supposed to be seductive or something. “Or unless Jared comes back and the two of you want some time alone for a few days.”

 Jensen sighs and decides not to fight them on it. A few days free of MJ would probably help him sort his head out better than if she was here under his feet. “Okay, fine, whatever you say.” He can always walk over to Chris’ place later if he changes his mind.

“We can stay and hang out here if you want,” Chris says carefully and Jensen rolls his eyes.

“And leave Danni alone at your place all day?”

Chris starts to protest again but Jensen just spins him around and herds him towards the door.

“You can call tomorrow if you really must, but I swear I’m fine.”

“Really?” Chad asks with his head cocked to the side, like he’s taking in everything that Jensen has on display and Jensen deflates.

“I’m working on it. I’ll _be_ fine. I have to be.”

Chris and Chad look him over once more before they decide that they really can’t do anything and Jensen crouches down to MJ’s level, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she throws her arms around his neck.

“Be good for your aunt and uncles, okay? I don’t wanna hear about you putting salt in Uncle Chris’ fish tank again, you hear me?”

He’s expecting MJ to blush at being caught out on her prank, but instead she giggles into her hands and above them, Chad lets out a snort of amusement.

“Hilarious, the pair of you,” Chris gripes.

With another round of goodbyes, Jensen stands on the porch and watches as they file out to Chris’ car, Chad being careful to secure MJ in her booster seat, and then their taillights are disappearing around the corner and Jensen is fighting with himself to run and get her back.

His eyes land on the space in his driveway where his car usually is. He doesn’t know what to make of it, what Jared was thinking when he decided to take off in Jensen’s car, or even if he was thinking at all. He wonders where Jared is now, where he thought he needed to drive to in the middle of the night and has a sinking feeling in his belly that anywhere would have been better than staying in the room with Jensen.

Turning back inside, Jensen feels a little bit ridiculous, standing in the middle of the living room completely alone. With MJ gone he’s got nothing to do now, nothing to keep his mind from replaying the events of the previous night over and over again in his head and it’s making him go a little bit insane.

Switching off the TV and heading to the stairs, Jensen decides that the best thing to do would be to try to get some work done, getting lost in some manuscript, trying to find the next greatest author. Or trying to prevent the next _Fifty Shades of Grey_ from making it onto the shelves.

Standing just outside his bedroom, Jensen pushes the door open and takes in the scene in front of him and feels his stomach clench. Jared’s Chuck Taylors and socks are still lying haphazardly at the end of the bed next to Jensen’s clothes, like they belong there or something and Jensen just can’t face it, not yet. He closes the door behind him as he crosses to the hall to his office, shutting out the outside world with a firm click of the lock, just for a little while.

 

///

 

His plan lasted the better part of an hour before the words started to swim in front of his eyes. He didn’t get much sleep last night, too busy watching MJ in a way he hasn’t done since she was a baby and he can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for doing that

So he came back downstairs and dropped onto the couch and he hasn’t moved since.

Alright, he’d gotten up to take a piss around lunch time, came back to the couch with a bag of chips and a half-empty bottle of Coke that Chad had left behind weeks ago.

Jensen rolls his eyes at himself. Half-empty, he can almost hear Danneel’s scolding at the pessimistic phrase, but Jensen can’t help it. It’s how he feels right now, like his life’s half-empty and the only thing filling up the not-empty half is MJ.

Chris seems to be under the impression that Jared will come back, if for no other reason than to collect his things and return Jensen’s car, and that will at least give Jensen some time to explain. To try to make Jared understand why he kept MJ’s existence a secret.

 But Jensen knows he can’t depend on that. Jared could just as soon never return and Jensen will just receive a phone call from Sherri or Gerry, demanding that Jensen ship all of Jared’s belongings to their house and Jensen will never see Jared again. And he needs to start preparing himself for that possibility.

He needs to start moving on and moping on the couch isn’t going to accomplish that, but Jensen’s having trouble getting himself motivated.

 He should be getting dinner ready for when Danneel brings MJ home, but that’s not happening today and he feels a little bit lost without his daughter to take care of and all that means that Jensen has found himself in some sort of weird limbo with nothing to do but wallow and watch TV, or whatever passed for TV these days, he doesn’t watch much.

He’s half-temped to get up and find a movie to watch, but he honestly can’t find the energy to get off the couch, so he just picks up the remote, scrolling through the TiVo until he finds that he’s managed to store the latest season of _Criminal Minds_ in its entirety and he hasn’t watched a single episode.

He hits play on the first episode and flops over onto his stomach and tries to remembering what the hell’s going on in the show.

He’s watched four episodes and the opening credits are rolling on the fifth when the front door opens and Jensen doesn’t even have the energy to be surprised that his friends are checking up on him. Again.

Something drops down onto the coffee table and Jensen tries to look without moving his head and he can just about make out a white paper bag that looks like take-out out of the corner of his eye and a pair of jeans-clad legs.

He picks his still mostly full bag of chips up off the floor and waves it at whoever is encroaching on his wallowing. “I’m not hungry.”

“Good, because I really wouldn’t recommend you eat what’s in that bag. I mean, I know they’re safe to put in your mouth, but there’s probably a choking hazard.”

Jensen blinks and pauses the TiVo, moving his head this time and locking eyes with Jared as the taller man looks down on him.

“You left.” There’s not much emotion in Jensen’s voice and he wonders for a second if he’s just given up after all.

But Jared’s frowning, like he can’t understand why Jensen feels the need to point this out. “I went to the store.”

Jensen gawps at him. “You’ve been gone for, like, eighteen hours.” It’s probably longer, but he can’t make himself do the math right now.

Jared blows out a breath. “Alright, so I went to the store in San Antonio. It’s a really good store.”

Jensen shakes his head, because this whole scene is making the kind of sense that doesn’t and Jensen is completely lost. “You left,” he repeats, like saying it again will make Jared understand that important factor.

“And I came back,” Jared says just as slowly. “Jesus, Jen, you make it sound like I ran away to Japan or something.” He plops down on the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table. Jensen can’t help noticing that he’s wearing an old, beat-up pair of tennis shoes and no socks and he wonders where Jared got them from, since Jared’s Chucks are still on the floor of Jensen’s bedroom.

It was all so disgustingly normal, like Jared really had just popped out to the store to buy whatever choking hazard is in his bag. And Jensen gets it, he really does, but he just can’t let it go.

“Jared.”

With a deep sigh, Jared turns towards him, his head resting on the back of the couch as he looks at Jensen with stormy eyes.

“You ran away.” He phrases it differently, hoping Jared will figure out just how broken Jensen was when he watched Jared flee from the room, not even bothering to pause long enough to put on his clothes.

“She’s three years old, Jensen,” Jared says, his voice sounding torn, like the words hurt to say. “If I’d stayed in Tokyo, would I even know about her right now?”

Jensen can’t do anything except be completely honest. “No.”

Jared just nods and looks away, but Jensen can see the shine of tears in his eyes. “You really hate me that much, huh? That you would keep my daughter from me?”

“Hate you?” Jensen repeats, shocked to the core that Jared could think that. “I don’t hate you. Jared, I love you so much it actually hurts sometimes. Every time I look at her, it’s like I’m being punished for what I did, for keeping her from you.”

“Then why do it? Why keep her a secret?”

Again, honesty is the only thing that might possibly save him here. “I didn’t…I couldn’t face the idea that you wouldn’t want her. I didn’t want her to have to deal with that, with growing up knowing that her father didn’t want anything to do with her, so it was just easier to pretend that I was doing the right thing for everyone.”

Jared turns his head so fast Jensen sort of wonders if he has whiplash.

“Wouldn’t want her? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jensen throws his hands in the air, shuffling on the couch until he’s facing Jared with his legs tucked up underneath him. “Come on, Jared. You’d just moved to Tokyo, starting this great job, this great new life. The last thing I wanted was to take you away from that.”

“I told you, Jensen, I never wanted that job. I would have come back in a heartbeat if you’d told me!”

“I didn’t know that, I didn’t know about your stupid fucking plan. The only information I had was that you never asked me how I felt about your leaving, you never asked me to go with you. Which only led me to conclude that you didn’t want to be with me.”

Jared blushes. “Yeah, I fucking screwed that up big time.” He looks at Jensen from underneath his lashes. “I would have come back, if you’d told me about the baby.”

Jensen nods. “I know. I knew it at the time, too.”

“And you still didn’t tell me?”

“I wanted you to come home for _me_ , not because you thought you had a responsibility to Molly-Jay.”

Jensen inwardly cringes. It’s the first time he’s used Molly-Jay’s full name in front of Jared, and as he waits for the inevitable explosion from Jared, he’s more than a little confused when it never comes. In fact, Jared doesn’t even so much as blink at his daughter’s name, and Jensen wonders if he’s found out the truth from someone else, despite Jensen warning everyone who knew Molly-Jay’s true parentage.

“I do have a responsibility to her,” Jared says without pause, “and I would have come home for her, but…” Jared’s hazel eyes bore into Jensen’s green ones, “if you’d told me about her, I probably would have just used her as an excuse to get close to you again. I told you last night, I came home because I was tired of walking around like I’d left my heart behind.”

“Do you hate me?” Jensen asks, his voice a whisper. He doesn’t want to know, but at the same time, he can’t stop himself from asking.

“I wish you’d told me, but after talking to my mom, I think I understand a little better why you didn’t.”

Well, that explains where Jared went and why he was gone so long. Jensen really shouldn’t be surprised; Jared always was a real mama’s boy at heart.

“I did want to tell you,” Jensen admits. “I wrote you so many emails, like I told you, but I never sent any of them. Even after I decided I wasn’t going to send them, I still wrote them. It became sort of like a diary, covering every little part of her life.”

“I’d like to see those, if you still have them.”

Jensen nods. “Maybe someday.”

Jared chuckles. “But, hey, finding out that she’s mine is a hell of a lot better than some of the theories I was entertaining.”

With a smile, Jensen moves a little closer to Jared on the couch, leaning his head against the cushions. “Yeah? Like what?”

“I found out when her birthday was, when I picked her up from school on Friday,” Jared starts. “It’s only eight months after I left. Pretty much to the day.”

Jensen nods. “I went into labor a month early. They said it’s pretty common with male pregnancies. Something about our bodies being capable of carrying a child but not being built for it the way a woman’s is. Scared the shit out of me, though. Thought I was gonna lose her before I even had her.”

Jared blinks at him, like he’s fascinated. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jensen laughs at the memory. “You know, I was in labor for forty-nine fucking hours, but she was fucking determined that she was not coming out the normal way. She started to panic and got herself all turned around, so the doctors decided the safest thing for both of us was for me to have a C-Section.”

“I thought you cheated on me.” Jared says it so fast that Jensen has to stop and think it over for a second before the words make sense.

_“What?!”_

Because…really.

At least Jared has the decency to blush. “When I found out Molly’s birthday, the idea that she might have been premature didn’t occur to me. All I knew was that she was born eight months after I left, and that a pregnancy is normally nine months. That left me one month that didn’t add up. The only conclusion I could come to was that you fucked some girl a month before I left and knocked her up.”

“You really think I could do something like that?”

Jared shakes his head. “No, not really. But I didn’t know what else to think. I even started to think about the days after I told you I was leaving, trying to remember if you’d dropped off the radar one night because you went out and got drunk.”

“That did happen. Couple times actually, but even then, I didn’t have it in me to sleep with someone else, girl or not. You don’t fuck around on the person you’re in love with, even if you aren’t currently with them.”

Jared gazes at him with a warm expression in his eyes but it fades pretty quickly. “Is that the only reason you didn’t tell me? Because you were scared how I was going to react? I mean…do you not want me to be a part of her life? Your life?”

Jensen rolls his eyes, because he doesn’t remember Jared being this insecure. “I didn’t find out I was pregnant until almost four months after you left. I figured you’d already be pretty settled in by then, so I didn’t want to do anything to upset that.

“Why did it take so long for you to find out?”

“When you’re sick all the time and still gaining weight, but you’re a guy, the last thing you think is that you’re pregnant. If it wasn’t for Danni forcing me to go to the doctor, I probably wouldn’t have figured it out until I went into labor. Or Molly-Jay punched her way out of my stomach.” Jensen laughs, but he’s cringing at the mental image he’s created, scenes of _Alien_ flashing in his mind.

“Mo-Molly- _Jay_?”

“You…you didn’t know?”

Jared swallows so hard Jensen can see his throat working. “Her name is Molly-Jay?” Jared asks, proving to Jensen that, no, he didn’t know.

“Molly-Jay Padalecki Ackles. Padalecki is her middle name; Molly-Jay is…it has a hyphen. That’s her full name.”

Jared’s looking at him with wet eyes. “You named her after me?”

“You’re her father,” Jensen replies honestly. “I wanted you to have at least something that tied her to you, even if there was the chance that you’d never know.” He smiles. “If she’d been a boy, I was gonna call her ‘Jaysen’, ‘cause that’s both our names. I didn’t really have anything that incorporated both our names for a girl, and when we were talking about names, my mom told me she would have named me ‘Holly’ if I’d been a girl, and ‘Molly’ was pretty close to that and I liked it. It was actually Chris who suggested ‘Molly-Jay’ after I told him about the ‘Jaysen’ plan.”

Jared snorts. “I can’t believe you named her after me.”

“You knew her name was Molly, though?” Jensen asks, because Jared didn’t seem surprised by that part.

“Yeah, when I went to pick her up from preschool, her teacher called her it. But she said it in such a way that it sounded like she was addressing her and me by the Jay. It never occurred to me that that was her name.”

Jensen nods, understanding.

Jared laughs, suddenly, sounding free and easy for the first time since before Jensen’s night of drunken escapism. “Jesus, all this time I thought she was being cute, calling me ‘Jay’ every time I said her name. She was fucking correcting me because I was getting it wrong!”

Jensen chuckles. “I don’t really know where she got that from, because every single person who is a major part of Molly-Jay’s life has some sort of nickname for her, but she hates it if anyone leaves the ‘Jay’ off the end.”

“It’s cute,” Jared admits. “I always sorta thought that ‘MJ’ was something to do with ‘Molly and Jensen’, you know?”

Jensen grins at him. “Only your gigantic, malfunctioning brain could leap to that sort of logic. You scare me sometimes.”

Jared snorts. “Trust me, with everything that’s gone through my head in the last week, I kinda scare myself. I guess it kinda makes sense now why you haven’t been calling me ‘Jay’ since I’ve been back.”

Jensen cringes. “Yeah, it felt a bit weird, although, I have had to actually stop myself a few times. Not sure how much longer I was gonna be able to hold out.”

“And if it’d happened in front of Mol…Molly-Jay and she’d said something and I’d freaked out like I did last night, I would have made a bigger mess than I already did. The last thing I wanna do is scar her for life or something.”

Jensen doesn’t really know what to say to that, because it’s not like everything was all Jared’s fault. Like everybody’s been telling him since Jared came home – if Jensen had just come clean in the first place, none of this would have happened.

They lapse into silence, both of them trying to pretend that they’re not sneaking glances at each other from under their lashes when they think the other isn’t looking.

Finally, Jensen lets out a deep sigh and collapses back into the couch.

“So what happens now?” he asks carefully. What with all the revelations that have come out in the last twenty-whatever hours, Jensen honestly isn’t sure.

“I think that’s sort of up to you, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

Jared shrugs. “You’re kinda the one holding all the cards here, Jensen. You say the word and I’m…” he trails off and leaves Jensen hanging.

“You’re what?” He can’t help but ask.

Jared looks at him, his hazel eyes shining. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

“I want…” Jensen swallows past the emotion choking him. “I want you here. I want you to be…however involved in our lives as you want to be.”

Jared chews on his lower lip for a second and then leans forward to grab the paper bag that’s still sitting on the coffee table. He drops it in Jensen’s lap with a nervous smile.

Confused, Jensen narrows his eyes a little before he unrolls the top of the bag, staring down into the contents with trepidation.

He barks a laugh when he pulls out the twelve-pack of condoms and looks up at Jared with wide eyes. “This is what you went out to get?”

“No, I went out to cry on my mama’s shoulder, and then got annoyed when she told me I was being an asshole. I bought those at the drug store just before I came back here.”

“Your mama told you you were an asshole?”

“Mostly because I ran away from you last night and my completely sucky plan four years ago, but yeah, she’s totally on your side, dude.”

Jensen blinks in surprise. “She is?”

“Yep. She says we have to bring Molly…” Jared clears his throat, like he’s still struggling over his daughter’s name, “Molly-Jay to visit at Thanksgiving because she doesn’t like the fact that she has a granddaughter that she’s never met.”

Jensen lets out a gasp. “I never thought of that. God, how could I have forgotten about your parents? That’s just…”

“Relax, Jensen, it’s okay. She knows what you did and why. Like I said, she’s totally on your side.”

“I just…didn’t really think about how many people would be affected by me not telling them about MJ.” Jensen snorts a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Although, _not_ telling certain people might have been a better idea. I just wish I’d known that before I broke the news of my pregnancy to my entire family at once.”

Jensen cringes as soon as the words are out of his mouth and he chances a look up at Jared as the taller man shifts on the couch until he’s facing Jensen head on.

“Jen, what are talking about? Did someone do some-” he trails off and Jensen watches as he narrows his eyes. “Josh, right? You said the other day that you weren’t speaking to him or something.”

Jensen scratches at his temple. “Let’s just say some stuff was said when he found out I was pregnant. He wasn’t exactly thrilled. Some punches were thrown – not by me or at me – and we haven’t seen him or his family since. He’s never met MJ and I don’t even know where he is. I don’t think any of us do.”

“God, Jensen, I can’t imagine what that must have been like, how awful that must have felt. Knowing that someone could think…I don’t even know what exactly Josh thought, but from the look on your face, it must not have been anything good. And dealing with all that on top of the pregnancy? God.”

Jensen looks away from Jared’s piercing hazel eyes, down at his hands that are resting in his lap. He’s surprised to find that they’re holding hands; his left hand is gripped tightly in Jared’s right, fingers entwined. Jensen can feel it, almost like a sensory reaction, when Jared pushes all the air out of his lungs and he slumps down into the couch.

“Oh,” he says in a voice so tiny Jensen wouldn’t think he’d be capable of it if he hadn’t heard it with his own ears. “You really think I could be capable of thinking… _that_ about an innocent child?”

“No,” Jensen admits, finally returning Jared’s gaze, “but I didn’t think my brother was capable of thinking it either. I just knew it was a possibility.”

They sit on the couch, regarding each other coolly, eyes searching faces for something neither of them can define but looking for it nevertheless.

“So, uh, condoms, huh?” Jensen says with a nervous laughing. Trying to break the tension that’s fallen over them, he waves the box in the air with his free hand.

Jared makes a face, like he’s scared of how Jensen’s going to react to what he’s going to say. “Yeah,” he admits gently. “Look, I wanna…I wanna be here, Jensen. I want to be part of your life and Molly-Jay’s. I want us to be a family, a real, honest to God family. I just…I don’t think I’m ready to have any more kids just yet.”

Jensen blinks at him for a few seconds before he bursts out laughing, throwing his head back and letting the feeling carry him away.

“Jared, last night when I told you we needed condoms, it wasn’t just because I wanted to take your feelings into consideration,” Jensen explains. “Seriously, man, I’m so not ready to have another baby right now.”

Jared’s eyebrows shoot up almost to his hairline. “Really?”

“Man, after the last one? There’s no way I could go through that again just yet, especially not with MJ being so young.”

Jared nods, but he looks…upset almost at Jensen’s response. “You know I’d help, right? Whenever we do decide…I mean, if we wanna have another baby, I’ll help out.”

Jensen reaches over to cup the side of Jared’s face. “I know you will. But, seriously, after the C-Section, I wasn’t any use to anyone, and if it wasn’t for my mom and Danneel, I don’t think I could have coped. MJ’s too young right now; she wouldn’t really understand why Daddy can’t play with her like he usually does. Add a new baby on top of all of that…it’s just too much.”

“But…I’d be here this time, you know that, right?”

Jensen laughs. “Yes, Jared, but we’re not exactly in the right place to be thinking about kids. We’ve kinda done this all backwards. I think we need to spend some time together, focusing on the family we have now before we start talking about anymore additions.”

Jared chews on his lower lip for a second, causing Jensen to zone out. He’s always gotten a weird fluttering in his stomach whenever Jared did that and four years apart hasn’t changed it.

“So, that’s not a ‘no’, right?” he asks finally and Jensen can’t help but smile.

“It’s just a ‘not right now’,” Jensen promises. “If this…if this is it, if we’re gonna be…then, yeah, when MJ is older, when we’re more settled, stable. We can talk about it.”

“I can live with that.”

Before Jensen can figure out what he’s doing, Jared leans forward, capturing Jensen’s lips in a heated kiss, his tongue exploring the inside of Jensen’s mouth with easy familiarity.

Jared pulls back suddenly and Jensen has to brace himself against the couch cushion to stop himself from falling face first into Jared’s lap. Not that that would have necessarily been a bad thing, but from the excited glint in Jared’s eyes, Jensen guesses they’re not moving this onto sex just yet.

“So, can I see it?” Jared asks, bouncing in place like an excited three year old. Jensen knows this from experience.

But he’s not really sure what Jared’s talking about right now. “See what?”

“The scar, where MJ came out. I just caught a quick glimpse last night during my freak out, but I really wanna see it.”

“Oh.” Jensen can feel the blush crawling up his neck, but he pulls away from Jared nevertheless, settling back against the couch a little. With a look at Jared out of the corner of his eye, Jensen pushes his t-shirt up and lowers the waistband on the sweatpants he’s wearing until the scar, low on his abdomen, is revealed.

Jared looks completely enraptured as he leans forward slightly to run just the very tips of his fingers over the pinkish line on Jensen’s skin. Jensen sucks in a breath at the touch, arousal pooling low in his groin at having Jared’s so close but yet so far from where he really wants him to be and he has to bite down hard on his lower lip to stop himself from groaning or asking for more.

“It’s so…” Jared seems to struggle to find the word he’s looking for, “neat. Tidy.”

Jensen manages a strained chuckle. “What were you expecting? Some huge knife wound right across my stomach?”

“No, but, come on, Jen. A baby came out of there. Even premature, MJ couldn’t have been all that small, considering who her parents are.”

Jensen smiles and throws his head back against the couch again. “Oh, yeah, she’s definitely her father’s daughter, alright. She came out around five pounds. I’m actually glad she was early, I don’t even wanna think about what she would have weighed at full term.”

Jared continues the soft touches, the pads of his fingertips drifting lower and igniting things within Jensen that he’d thought were long gone, and he has to bite down harder on his lip.

“Jen.” Jared’s voice is a breathy whisper and Jensen opens his eyes – when had he closed them? – to see Jared’s mouth so close to where Jensen really wanted it that he couldn’t help the groan that escaped past his lips.

“What do you want?” Jared asks. Jensen can feel Jared lips brushing along his skin and he can’t take it anymore, can’t find the restraint he was searching for.

“You,” he answers honestly. “Everything, just…God, please.”

Jared closes the rest of the distance between them and presses a kiss to the scar, his tongue coming out to run along the slightly raised edge before his hands grip the waistband of Jensen’s sweatpants and prepares to pull them the rest of the way off.

“Wait!” Jensen forces himself upright, dislodging Jared as he goes and he winces a little at the betrayed look on the other man’s face.

“You don’t want this?”

Jensen reaches out and palms Jared’s cheek, pulling him in close for a deep but fleeting kiss. “I do, just…just not here.”

Jared frowns, looking around. “What’s wrong with here? Do you have any idea how many times we’ve had sex on this couch? Too many times to count, that’s how many.”

Jensen grins. “Yeah, that was before it became the place where our daughter makes Danni paper flowers while she watches old _Mighty Mouse_ cartoons.”

There’s a strange sort of pleased smile on Jared’s face and it makes Jensen smile in return. “Our daughter,” he repeats, his voice high and breathy, like he’s completely in awe of the words. Then the smile vanishes completely and he wrinkles his nose in something too adorable to be labeled disgust. “Oh, ew, we can’t have sex here.”

He grabs Jensen by the hand and pulls them both to their feet, pausing only long enough to grab the condoms before he drags Jensen towards the stairs.

“Impatient much?” Jensen manages past his laughter as he stumbles after the over-eager man, up the stairs to the bedroom

“Four years, Jensen, four years since the last time I touched you, kissed you, made love to you.”

That sobers Jensen instantly and he pulls on Jared’s hand, jerking him to a stop just outside MJ’s bedroom.

“Hey, we don’t have to rush this,” he says, looking up into Jared’s eyes and trying to put as much emotion into his voice and expression as he can muster. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere. This is us…this is it. We have all the time in the world.”

There’s a soft look in Jared’s eyes, like he’s finally getting that everything they both wanted and never had the balls to ask for is theirs. But then he smirks, tugging on Jensen’s arm again until they’re standing in the master bedroom.

“Actually, we pretty much only have until Molly-Jay gets home. And we’ve…” he trails off. “Wait, where is MJ?”

Jensen shrugs. “I kinda freaked out a little bit last night, called Danneel and made her bring MJ home to me, but…Chris and Chad, they said I needed some time to process whatever happened between us, said I couldn’t do that when I had to worry about MJ. They’re gonna keep her for a couple days.”

Jared takes a step back and Jensen frowns. He looks upset by the news, and Jensen’s honestly confused. He would have thought that MJ being gone would have made him at least excited by the idea of getting some time to themselves before their newly created status quo is shattered by the three-year-old whirlwind.

“But…she should be here. I…I mean I want her to be here.” He steps forward quickly, into Jensen’s space, pressing himself against the smaller man as much as possible given their vertical position. “Don’t…don’t think that I don’t want her here. I don’t want you to think that I’m only here for you. I mean, I am, obviously, here for you, I mean, but…I wanna be a part of her life, too. I want her to know who I am; I want her to know that I’m her father, too.” He takes a small step backwards. “I mean, if that’s what you want. If you want to tell her that I’m her father. If you want me to be a father to her, ‘cause I’m okay with being a friend, or maybe an uncle, like Chad and Chris and I-”

“Jared, stop, for the love of God.” Jensen finds himself laughing in the face of Jared’s babbling. It’s such a recognizable trait of the man in front of him, something he reverted to when he was nervous or upset or happy or…pretty much any kind of emotion. It’s comforting to Jensen, to know that Jared hasn’t changed at all in the time they were apart and he hopes that he’s still as recognizable to Jared as Jared is to him.

“Will you relax?” He takes Jared’s hand again and leads him towards the bed, pulling Jared down with him as he sits on the edge. “I want you here, Jared. I want you to be a part of Molly-Jay’s life in every way possible. And that includes being her father and her knowing that you’re her father. It’s something I should have done right at the beginning and I’ll never forgive myself for keeping the two of you away from each other. She deserves to know her father just as much as you deserve to know your daughter.”

Jared nods, a small smile breaking out across his face. “Okay, good. That’s good. So, can we go get her?”

“No,” Jensen says with a chuckle.

Jared’s face falls and he looks upset again. “Why not?”

“Because we are going to use this time away from her to learn how to have quiet sex.”

Jared jerks a little at that, like he’s only just become aware of the implications on their sex life that MJ will have before now. He lets out a strangled giggle.

“The way you scream and moan during sex, this is going to be an interesting learning curve.”

Jensen doesn’t get to reply to that because Jared kisses him again, his tongue sweeping into Jensen’s mouth with no hesitation and Jensen just…lets go of everything, lets himself float away on the knowledge that Jared is right here, finally, where he was always supposed to be.

He lets Jared push him back onto the bed and crawls upwards until he can feel the mound of pillows behind him. He hasn’t made the bed since Jared ran out – hasn’t been in the room at all since he left it the night before – and his feet get caught in the sheets, causing Jared to stop and giggle at him as he helps them to get untangled.

With a glint in his eye, Jared pulls away from where he’s been following Jensen up the bed and kicks at the bedclothes some more, until they fall in a heap on the floor at the far side of the bed.

With the bed clear of everything but the two of them and the pillows Jensen’s resting against, Jared resumes his slow crawl up the bed.

“What, is this supposed to be sexy?” Jensen asks with a frown, trying to hide his smile. “’Cause right now, you just look like a constipated ape or something.”

With a growl, Jared grabs Jensen by the ankles and pulls him down the bed, causing Jensen to let out a sharp laugh.

“You wanna get laid or not?”

Jensen waves a hand in the air. “By all means, carry on.”

Jared gives him a pleased sort of smile while his hands wander down Jensen’s body until his fingers hook in the waistband of his sweatpants, and Jared wastes no time in getting rid of them, pulling them and Jensen’s – Jared’s – underwear off in one deft move.

Impatient, Jensen sits up slightly to pull off his t-shirt, leaving him completely naked while Jared’s still completely clothed and it gives Jensen an odd sort of thrill.

Jensen starts a little when Jared’s lips touch his skin. Not because he wasn’t expecting the touch, but because of where Jared’s lips pressed first.

Propping himself up on his elbows, Jensen watches with wide eyes as his…whatever Jared is now, presses a kiss to the C-Section scar, before he moves lower, his tongue running across the line of Jensen’s pubic hair as his hands caress Jensen’s sides.

“Holy shit,” Jensen breathes and he collapses flat on the bed again. The touch is driving him wild, sensation after sensation flowing through him from what shouldn’t be an arousing feeling, the feeling of Jared’s tongue dragging through the coarse hair, but God if it doesn’t make Jensen’s dick even harder.

“Jared…” he gasps, arching into the other man’s space.

Jared doesn’t answer, just moves his mouth lower, licking and sucking at the skin around Jensen’s cock before he licks a path from root to tip.

Jensen groans loudly. “Goddamn tease,” he pants. “Good to know nothing’s changed in four years.”

Jared simply laughs lightly and continues on his path.

Jensen’s not all that surprised when he feels Jared’s tongue swirl around his hole.

Rimming Jensen had been one of Jared’s favorite things, back in the day, and it looks like it still is.

Groaning, Jared pushes his tongue past the tight ring of muscle, causing Jensen to suck in a breath and keen loudly.

God, he’s missed this.

It’s not long until Jared’s pushing his finger into Jensen’s opening alongside his tongue and Jensen rocks down onto the digit, silently begging for more as he tries to muffle his strung-out words.

They might need to soundproof their bedroom.

“Jared, please. Oh, God, I need…” Giving up, Jensen moans loudly, then grunts in frustration when Jared pulls away completely.

“Relax,” he says with a grin, “I just think we need to move this along before I blow all over the bed sheets.”

Jensen nods his head. Four years without sex? Yeah, he’s not going to last long either.

“Lube… box under the bed?” Jared asks, already shifting that way while Jensen just sinks back into the mattress with a shaky nod. At least Jared remembered from the night before and Jensen doesn’t have to waste time trying to get his brain into gear so that he can form words.

Jensen throws an arm over his eyes, trying to get his breathing under control a little as Jared disappears from view. The sound of rummaging fills the bedroom before Jared gives a triumphant shout. Then he lets out some weird giggle that has Jensen frowning.

“Man, I can’t believe you still have this!” Jared exclaims loudly, holding up the black dildo as he comes back into Jensen’s line of vision, the lube in his other hand.

Jensen blushes from his toes to the ends of his hair as Jared waves the plastic dick in his face. “What? It’s…I like it.”

Jared bites his lip as he crawls back onto the bed, settling back on his heels between Jensen’s spread thighs. “Do you think about me when you…you know…?”

Jensen lets his eyes fill with heat as he looks up at the man above him. “Every time,” he admits in a breathy whisper. “Every time I touch myself, I think about you. Every time I close my eyes, your face is the only one I see.”

“Jesus,” Jared swallows hard and moves his hand on the dildo like it’s Jensen’s dick he’s pleasuring and not a fake one. “When was the last time you used it?”

“The day before you came home. I was home, alone, and I just _needed_ it, needed to be filled, needed to let myself pretend for a little while.”

“What…what did you do? How…?” Jared voice is nothing but a strained whisper, his eyes locked on Jensen’s like he’s the only person in the world right now who matters.

Enjoying the power he has over the other man for a change, Jensen pushes himself up onto his knees and shuffles forward a little until he’s pressed against Jared as much as physically possible.

“You wanna know how I rode it, Jared? You wanna know how I knelt on this bed, exactly like I am now? How I prepped myself, how I put that big, fake cock between my legs and sank down on it?”

Jared lets out a shaky moan, the dildo dropped to the side. “God, tell me. Jen. Please.”

“I pretended it was you,” Jensen goes on. “I closed my eyes and imagined that you were beneath me, watching me ride you, slow and easy and gentle, until neither of us could take it anymore and you grabbed me by the hips, holding me still as you fucked up into me. Hitting that perfect spot on every thrust.”

“Yes,” Jared gasps, his hands reaching out to touch every part of Jensen’s body. “God, yes, do it. Right now.”

Jared flips onto his back and shuffles to the middle of the bed while Jensen throws one leg over his hips to straddle his waist. He sits up on his knees as Jared pops open the cap on the lube, pouring a generous amount into the palm of his hand. He coats his fingers liberally, then reaches between Jensen’s legs, caressing and petting the puckered skin for a few long, drawn out seconds until Jensen growls low under his breath and tells him to get on with it.

Still, Jensen does let out a strangled gasp when Jared pushes two fingers inside of him with no hesitation. He’s a little loose from the rimming Jared had given him, but it still takes him a moment to get used to being full and then he’s rocking back onto Jared’s hand, pushing the fingers deeper and moaning out Jared’s name when he grazes Jensen’s prostate.

Two fingers are soon exchanged for three and then Jensen can’t take it anymore. It’s been too long, and his own hand and a piece of plastic are certainly no match for Jared Padalecki, spread out hard and willing beneath him, looking up at Jensen with eyes so blown with lust they look completely black in the dim light of their bedroom.

“Enough,” he mumbles, reaching for the box of condoms and ripping into it.

Jared lets out a breathy laugh and takes the box from his shaking fingers, taking out a single foil packet and putting the rest of the box on the nightstand that’s just within reach.

Jensen watches with incredible fascination as Jared tears open the tiny square, pulling out the condom and rolling it down his already leaking cock. Jensen licks his lips as he watches Jared slick himself up and then their eyes meet.

Jensen holds Jared’s gaze as he lifts himself high, reaching behind to steady Jared’s cock as he sinks down, and, oh, God, it’s amazing and Jensen’s eyes roll back in his head.

The black dildo might be bigger than Jared, but the stupid fucking piece of plastic has nothing on the feeling – the knowledge – of being filled up by Jared, of rocking his hips down until he’s flush with Jared’s pelvis and he’s filled so full he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to walk straight again.

He starts off slow, just rocking his hips back and forward and reveling in the feeling of Jared being inside of him again – finally.  His hands fall to Jared’s chest, using the hard plane of muscle to balance against as he finds a rhythm, rolling his hips and using his legs to lift himself, just enough until the head of Jared’s cock is the only part that’s still inside Jensen. The he drops down hard, enjoying the blissed-out look on Jared’s face.

Jared’s hands are everywhere, roving over Jensen’s chest, pinching at his nipples, petting his face and hair, and then they start to travel south, skimming down the sides of Jensen’s body, sending shockwaves through him until they finally come to rest on Jensen’s hips.

Things speed up after that. Jared’s hands grips Jensen’s hips tight, lifting Jensen up and then bringing him back down forcefully at the same time as he thrusts upwards and Jensen can’t help but let loose with a hoarse cry, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, giving himself over completely to the man beneath him.

He doesn’t sense Jared moving, doesn’t realize what’s happening until he lands flat on his back on the bed, Jared looming above him, and he manages to let out a strangled laugh.

“God, you fucking caveman,” Jensen manages between his pants, but Jared doesn’t answer, just grabs Jensen by the hips again and sits back on his heels, pulling Jensen in until he’s sitting in Jared’s lap, one leg on either side of Jared’s waist. Jared’s cock slips back inside him and Jensen just lies back, allowing Jared to take control, and boy, does he take control.

Jared fucks into him with abandon and Jensen can do nothing but lie back and take it, his hands alternatively fisting in the sheets beneath him or running over any piece of Jared’s skin he can reach. It’s mind-blowing. It’s breath-taking. It’s every fucking cliché Jensen can think of and he doesn’t even care that he sounds like some freshman English major.

It’s Jared.

Jared’s hand moves to Jensen’s cock, then, gripping it tight as he starts to stroke in time with his thrusts and it’s only then that Jensen notices that Jared’s rhythm has faltered, his hips just pistoning into Jensen’s body with complete recklessness now, and Jensen knows that his orgasm is close.

He can already feel that familiar tingling at the base of his spine and he knows he isn’t far off his own climax and he reaches out a hand to cover Jared’s where he’s still jerking him off.

Jared shifts the angle of his hips until he’s pressing against Jensen’s prostate and that’s it. Jensen’s orgasm hits him like a freight train and he arches up off the bed and he spills, wet and messy, over both of their hands and stomachs, Jared’s name on his lips just like always.

“Oh, Jesus, _fuck,_ ” Jared screams and then he’s coming. Jensen can feel the heat of him filling the condom and it sends another wave of pleasure through his body, making him jerk with the aftershocks.

They don’t move for a second, both of them just frozen as they gaze at each other, but then Jared’s legs refuse to hold him up any longer and he falls forward onto Jensen, catching himself on his elbows at the last possible second so that he doesn’t crush him completely.

He kisses Jensen once, deeply, his tongue fucking into Jensen’s mouth, and then he pulls out, peppering Jensen’s face with soft kisses when he hisses.

He rolls off of Jensen, falling onto his back next to him and stares at the ceiling.

“That was…” he doesn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence, but Jensen’s lost the power of speech, so he just waves his hand in the air, bringing it back down to rest on Jared’s stomach.

It’s quiet, only the sounds of their labored breathing filling the air in the room and Jensen smiles. It’s not a strained quiet, it isn’t awkward or uncomfortable. In fact it’s…soothing, peaceful, like this is exactly where he’s supposed to be, lying on his back at the wrong end of the bed, his right side pressed up against Jared’s left.

“Are you going to overanalyze this until you freak out and come to the conclusion that I’m gonna run away?” Jared asks after a while, his voice soft, like he doesn’t want to break the moment.

Jensen turns his head just enough so that he can see Jared’s profile, and he lets Jared see his lips curl up into a smile. “Nope. I’m not analyzing. I don’t even think I’m thinking right now.”

“Redundant statement,” Jared points out and Jensen shoves him.

“Then clearly that means you’ve just fried my brain,” Jensen retorts, the back of his knuckles skimming up Jared’s torso and back down again.

“I need to clean up, but I’m having trouble moving my legs,” Jared says with what sounds like a giggle and he turns his face into Jensen’s shoulder, hiding a blush.

“Dunno if this means we’ve still got it or if we’re just getting old,” Jensen deadpans, but he doesn’t really care one way or the other.

“Plenty of time to build up our stamina again,” Jared reminds him, and Jensen can hear the words he hasn’t spoken ringing throughout the room.

_We have the rest of our lives._

_///_

“So.” Jared, finding that he has strength in his legs again, flips over onto his stomach and regards Jensen with narrowed eyes. “I don’t want to appear presumptuous about anything, so I’m just gonna ask this.”

Jensen frowns and cocks his head. “Ask what?”

“I have four appointments with realtors next week to see some apartments in town. Should I keep said appointments or cancel them?”

Everything within Jared is telling him that this is his home now, but he can’t just depend on that. There’s MJ to consider now, and with the way Jensen is just staring back at him, he sees that Jensen’s thinking the same thing.

He watches as Jensen chews on his lower lip in contemplation, his eyes roving over Jared’s face as his thoughts run around inside his head and Jared knows what Jensen’s doing without the other man even opening his mouth.

“Jensen,” Jared interrupts Jensen’s silent pondering. “Don’t think, don’t second guess, just…right now, tell me what you want.”

“You,” Jensen answers and Jared can see the honesty shining in his green eyes, “here, with me and Molly-Jay. This is your home. I want this to be your home.”

“Well, okay then.” Jared drops down to rest his head on Jensen’s chest, letting out a contented sigh. “But you have to help me unpack all my shit. Everything’s been in those suitcases for more than a week now. They are not going to look good. ‘Specially considering the smaller one’s got nothing in it but laundry.”

Jensen gags. “Gross, Jay!”

“What? I told you, coming home wasn’t exactly planned. I kinda had to pack in a hurry; I didn’t have time to do my laundry first!”

Jensen just rolls his eyes. “Where’s the rest of your stuff? You lived over there for four years; you can’t have fit all your shit into those suitcases you have downstairs.”

Jared shrugs. “Left a lot of stuff behind, just packed up what I needed and hopped the first plane back to Dallas Fort Worth. I was kinda working on the assumption that anything I didn’t have, you would probably have it or I could just buy it, but either way, I was covered.”

“You…really wanted to come home,” Jensen says quietly, like he’s in awe of the notion and Jared tightens his grip.

“Really wanted to see you again, tell you how I felt.”

“Wow.”

They lie there silently for another few minutes before Jensen shifts Jared off of him and sits up, crawling up the bed until he reach the phone that’s sitting on the nightstand.

Leaning up on his elbows, Jared watches as he dials a number from memory and waits, his foot tapping impatiently, for the call to connect.

“Damn,” Jensen hisses when the call is answered, “I really hope my daughter isn’t anywhere near the two of you right now, Chad.”

Jared snorts. “I think I should be offended that, after what was probably the most mind blowing sex we have ever had, you felt the need to call Chad. And Chris, I’m assuming.”

Jensen winces and pulls the phone away from his ear and Jared can hear the sound of Chad screaming down the line.

“And now I’m deaf, thanks, Murray.” Jensen throws a pillow at Jared’s head and puts the phone back to his ear. “I’m just calling to tell you that I’m gonna pick MJ up from preschool tomorrow, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Jared scoots up to lie next to Jensen and lets a ghost of a smile cross his lips as Jensen transfers the phone to his other ear so that Jared can listen in.

_“Jen, I told you, I really think you should just take sometime to-”_

Jensen cuts him off. “Jared’s here. We talked. Worked everything out.”

There’s a pause. _“So is this it?”_ Chad asks. _“You and Jared are good now? Because despite the fact that I’ve finally got Chris in the sack, he’s done nothing but stress over you since Danni called us last night.”_

Jared cringes. “I think I’m a little disturbed by the fact that you two were apparently talking about my boyfriend while you’ve been going at it. That’s kinda nasty, man. I don’t even know you all that well. I don’t think I like that.”

Chad squeaks and starts to babble and Jared watches as Jensen throws his head back to laugh, the long line of his throat looking beautiful and irresistible in the low light of the bedroom.

_“I meant…like…after. In between. Not…not during! God, that’s…oh, God, the mental images in my head right now.”_

Jared joins in the laughter, reveling in it and feeling completely relaxed for the first time in four years.

_“Alright, Padalecki, what did you say to him?”_ Chris’ gruff voice comes over the line. _“I’ve never known Jensen to come out with something that would make_ Chad _blush and right now, it looks like you broke him.”_

Jared looks up into Jensen’s deep green eyes, shining with mirth and he shrugs. “I just asked him why you two were talking about Jensen when you were fucking him.”

There was silence from the other end, before Chris’ rich, deep chuckle reverberates across the line. _“God, it’s good to have you back, Jay.”_

With that, the call disconnects and Jared takes the phone from Jensen’s hands, stretching across the other man to set it back in the cradle.

“What about you?” he asks, hovering where he is, looking down over Jensen. He braces his hands one on either side of Jensen’s head and lets his eyes rove over him. “You glad to have me back?”

With a deep breath, Jensen reaches up and grabs Jared by the back of his head. “Do you even have to ask?” he breathes and he pulls Jared into a deep, hot kiss.

No, Jared thinks as he drapes his body across Jensen’s, his cock starting to grow hard again, he really doesn’t have to ask.

 

///

** Epilogue **

Jensen clicks the ‘send’ button and slams down the lid of his laptop before he can think much more about it and jumps out of his chair, taking the stairs two at a time until he reaches the bottom and bounces into the living room.

He skids to a stop when he sees Jared, sprawled out on the couch, his eyes glued to the TV and his own laptop sitting on the coffee table in front of him, lid closed tight.

Jensen deflates a little.

“I thought you said you were going to email those realtors?” Jensen asks, trying for nonchalant but not hitting anywhere close.

“Huh?” Jared reluctantly tears his eyes away from the game on the screen – some old rerun – to look up at Jensen. “Oh, the realtors,” he says when Jensen’s words finally penetrate his sports-addled mind. “Yeah, sorry, I just got…caught up in this.” He points to the screen with a waving hand. “I think this is that game we went to when we took that trip to Dallas, you remember?”

Jensen glances at the screen and nods. That had been a little less than a year before Jared had dropped the bombshell about leaving. Chris and Steve had gotten a gig at some mid-draw bar in the heart of Dallas, so they had all decided to make a mini-vacation out of it, managing to take in the gig on the Saturday night and on the Sunday, the girls had gone shopping while the boys – minus a too-hung over Chris – caught tickets to the game before they all drove home again that night.

For the rest of the season, Jared and Riley had driven everyone crazy watching reruns off the game to see if they could spot themselves in the crowd.

“Cowboys lost that game,” Jensen says as soon as the memory pops into his mind and Jared groans, falling back against the couch.

“So not the point, Jen.”

Jensen shakes his head in resignation. “You’ve been watching reruns of that game for five years, Jay. I don’t think you’re any better qualified to pick yourself out of the crowd now than you were the first time you watched it.”

Jared waves a hand in the air. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

Jensen just sighs. “Okay, well I have to go pick up MJ from preschool; can you promise me that you’ll have those emails sent by the time we get back? I want…she might want to…you know, talk to you. Or something. I don’t know.”

Jared sits up straight and turns to look at him with wide eyes. “Are you…are you going to tell her? Now?”

“I figured you wouldn’t want me to drag it out, and I think it’s best if I sit her down – alone – and get it all out. That way, when she comes home, she can ask you any questions she has.” Jensen shrugs. “She’s a bright girl; she’ll probably have something to say. Don’t be too surprised if she asks you were you’ve been, why you haven’t been here.”

Jared squares his shoulders and gives Jensen a stiff nod, but Jensen can see the tension running through him, his nervousness given away by the way his eyes flick back and forth too quickly.

“Hey, it’ll be fine,” he promises, closing the short distance to stand in front of the other man and run his fingers through the long hair. “She might be confused about some stuff, but she’ll get over it pretty quick.”

Jared gives him a shaky nod and tilts his head up for a soft kiss. “Good luck,” he says with a tight smile.

Jensen huffs. “Who needs luck? I’m gonna bribe her with ice-cream and just go from there.”

With one last kiss, Jensen grabs his jacket and heads for the door, just catching sight of Jared picking up his laptop and he pulls the door closed behind him before he can watch the other man boot it up.

He’s too early to pick up MJ, but he couldn’t stay in the house and watch Jared read the emails he’s just sent. There must have been more than a hundred of them, each one cataloguing a different event in MJ’s life and Jensen knows that Jared’s probably not going to get through all of them before he brings their daughter home, even given the extra time it’ll take to explain everything that’s changed in her young life.

Jensen can’t even remember what half of the emails held, some of them written in the middle of too many sleepless nights as MJ teethed or fussed or decided she didn’t like her big girl bed and tried make him put her crib back together at three in the morning.

Still, Jensen at least knew that everything contained in every single one of those emails was things that Jared should have been around for, things that he should have experienced for himself, and if Jensen was the one responsible for not allowing that to happen, he could at least give Jared the next best thing he had.

He’s twenty minutes early when he gets to the preschool and he uses the time to head straight to the office, informing the pretty girl behind the desk that MJ’s emergency contacts have changed, bumping Danneel down to number three and replacing her name in slot number two with all of Jared’s information.

Jensen makes his way to MJ’s classroom, then, leaning against the wall outside, watching through the window in the door as the teacher rounds the kids up, tells them to tidy up whatever project they’re working on.

MJ’s standing in front of an easel, a huge white smock protecting her clothes as she paints a picture with the brightly colored paints. From this angle, Jensen can’t see what her chosen subject is, but he can just about make out three figures and he wonders if it’s Danneel or Chad in her family portrait this time.

Soon, the kids are grabbing their bags, struggling into coats as the teacher – Ms. McCoy, Jensen reminds himself – tries to line them all up at the door.

Jensen can hear them calling out a goodbye to her as she opens the door and then the hallway is filled with twenty-five three and four year olds, all of them following Ms. McCoy to the front of the school.

“Daddy!” MJ’s voice rings out above the din, causing Ms. McCoy to look back from the front of the line as Jensen’s daughter races towards him.

“Mr. Ackles, is there something I can do for you?”

“I’d like a word with you, if you’ve got a minute?”

Ms. McCoy studies him for a second before she gives an almost imperceptive nod. “I just have to make sure the kids get to their parents. You’re welcome to wait in the classroom.”

Jensen smiles and reaches for MJ. “That’d be great.”

“I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Jensen allows MJ to pull him into the classroom, showing off the room to him as if he hadn’t been in it before. She takes him to the painting he’d seen her working on and Jensen has to smile a little, because he can tell the other person in the picture is neither Danneel nor Chad or even Chris. The figure is too tall to be any of them, and if Jensen needed any more clues, the dark, floppy hair seals it for him.

“Did you paint a picture of Jared?” he asks as he crouches down next to MJ.

She nods, giving him a bright smile. “Yes. I like Jared. He makes me milkshakes.”

Jensen chuckles. MJ had raved about Jared’s milkshakes all Saturday morning before Danneel came to pick her up, and Jensen had had to promise to ask Jared to make her some more.

Something warm curls in his belly at the thought of Jared being able to make MJ milkshakes whenever she wants.

Ms. McCoy comes back then, and Jensen sends MJ off to draw a picture for Jared with the crayons on one of the tables before the teacher leads him to her desk.

“So, what can I do for you, Mr. Ackles? Is everything okay with Molly-Jay?”

“Oh, everything’s fine, that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” Jensen takes a seat on the other side of her desk when she gestures to it and he waits until she’s seated as well before he goes on. “Molly-Jay’s father has recently come back into her life. He’s been working overseas for the majority of Molly-Jay’s life, but he’s back now, so I just wanted you to be aware that he’ll be around more often now. You know, in case you’re wondering about the tall man in all her paintings.” He points to the picture MJ was working on with a smile.

Ms. McCoy clears her throat. “I see.”

Jensen frowns because she sounds…pissed. “Is that going to be a problem?”

She gives him a tight smile. “No, of course not. It’s just that…custody battles usually have a deep effect on the child or children at the center of it, obviously. I just need to prepare myself and my assistants so that we can be aware of any changes in Molly-Jay’s behavior.”

Jensen blinks because that…that doesn’t even make sense to him.

“Custody battle? Who said anything about a custody battle? I just came here to tell you that Molly-Jay’s father might be picking her up from school on occasion instead of me or her aunt or uncles. In fact, he did pick her up this past Friday.”

Ms. McCoy blushes. “I’m sorry, I just assumed…” she trails off and clears her throat. “When you said Molly-Jay’s father, I assumed you meant her biological father.”

Jensen frowns. “Yes…?”

“And he isn’t fighting you for custody?”

“Why the hell would he do that? We have a perfectly good relationship.” Okay, so it might be a relationship that’s less than twenty-four hours old, but Jensen knows for sure that Jared really isn’t going anywhere.

“In my experience, most men don’t like the idea of another man raising their child.”

“Well, she’s my child, too, and we’re raising her together, so I don’t really understand where you think the problem is coming from. We’re both her biological parents.”

Ms. McCoy’s eyebrows reach for her hairline before she averts her gaze, shame and embarrassment coloring her features. “Mr. Ackles, I apologize, I obviously made some assumptions about your…personal life that I really shouldn’t have.”

Jensen clears his throat loudly. “Yes, I’m gay. I’m also in a committed relationship with the father of my daughter and if that’s going to be a problem, maybe my…partner and I should be looking at preschools elsewhere in the city.”

“Mr. Ackles, I assure you, your personal life has nothing to do with me or anyone else at the school,” Ms. McCoy says earnestly. “The only thing I’m concerned about is any effects a change in the home life will have on the child at school, when she’s with other children. It’s why I ask that I be informed of any changes.”

Jensen smiles tightly. “Hence the reason I’m here.”

Ms. McCoy nods, but Jensen can tell she’s still embarrassed by her outburst. “I’ll see to it that the rest of the school staff knows about Mr.…?” she trails off, waiting for him to fill in the name.

“Padalecki,” he supplies quickly. “Jared Padalecki.”

“Hey, that’s my name!”

Jensen jumps. He hadn’t been aware of MJ coming to stand next to him, and now she’s looking at him with wide hazel eyes, a white piece of paper in her hands.

There’s amusement back in Ms. McCoy’s eyes as she looks from one of them to the other. “I’ll make sure all of Molly-Jay’s records are changed and up-to-date.”

Jensen stands quickly. “Thank you, Ms. McCoy.” He reaches down and takes MJ’s hand, pleased to see that she’s still got her coat and backpack on her shoulders, so he doesn’t have to waste time getting her ready again. “Let’s go, MJ.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Molly-Jay,” Ms. McCoy calls, a smirk in her voice and Jensen rolls his eyes.

“Bye, Ms. Sandy!” MJ waves over her shoulder as Jensen pulls her towards the door.

Jensen is quiet as he leads his daughter down the steps of the school until they’re standing on the other side of the parking lot, her hand held tight in his.

“Daddy, why is my name like Jared’s?” MJ asks as she skips next to him.

Jensen stops, causing her to trip on her Mary-Janes’, and takes a deep breath. “You wanna go get a milkshake, sweetheart?”

MJ grins up at him. “Jared makes me milkshakes.”

Jensen rolls his eyes with a chuckle. “Sorry, my mistake. Ice-cream, then? I’ll let you get anything you want.” He’s bribing her before he’s even tried to explain anything to her.

She bounces on her toes. “Can I get a banana split?!”

“You’ll make yourself sick,” he warns but he already knows he’s going to give into her.

They walk slowly to the ice-cream parlor a few blocks away, MJ informing Jensen of what she’d done at Chris’ the night before while Jensen tries to come up with the perfect way of making her understand what’s going on in her little life.

It’s not until she’s kneeling on the bench seat, stuffing her face with fruit and ice-cream while Jensen sips a cup of coffee that he decides he needs to say something.

“So, MJ, you know that little boy in your class? Jordan?”

MJ nods, grinning around the dessert in her mouth. “I like Jordan. He shared his pudding with me today.”

Jensen groans. “Yep, you’re definitely gonna be sick.”

Again, MJ just grins and Jensen clears his throat, getting back to the point. “Alright, so, you know how Jordan has two mommies, right? Instead of a mommy and a daddy?”

She nods again. “His mommies made cookies for his birthday.” She shovels another heap of ice-cream into her mouth. “They were nice.”

“Well, Jordan has two mommies and you…you, sweetheart, have two daddies.”

Jensen waits for her to swallow what’s in her mouth, his leg bouncing underneath the table, but she just looks at him, like she’s waiting for him to say something else.

“I know,” she says finally, offering some of her dessert to Jensen.

Jensen ignores the spoon. “What do you mean you know? You know what?”

“That I have two daddies. Can we watch _Thundercats_ when we go home?”

“How do you know that? Did Danneel tell you?”

MJ giggles. “No. I look like him. And his name’s like mine”

Jensen is getting really tired of this conversation. “You look like who?”

“Jared. His eyes are like mine and I have his dimplies.” She sticks her fingers in her own dimples as she grins up at him. “Ms. Sandy says that we look like our mommies and daddies. But I don’t have a mommy ‘cause I look like Jared.”

“You…you figured all of this out by yourself?” Jensen asks, amazed. “Wow, you definitely got your smarts from Jared.”

“I have frecklies like you.” She reaches across the table and brushes the tips of her fingers across the bridge of Jensen’s nose.

“Okay, listen, MJ, I need you to really pay attention here, okay?” he waits until she nods at him before he goes on. “Jared…Jared is…I want Jared to be a part of our lives. And I need to know if that’s okay with you before that happens, because you know that you are the most important thing in my life and I would do anything to make you happy.”

She blinks her huge hazel eyes at him. “Is Jared gonna live in our house and be there all the times now?”

“Well…well, yeah. I mean, I would like for that to happen and I’m pretty sure Jared would like that, too. But if you don’t want that, then that’s okay. We’ll figure something else out.”

Her tiny face creases up, like she’s thinking hard about the situation and Jensen can’t help but smile at how cute and innocent she looks.

“Will he make me milkshakes any time I want?” she asks finally.

Jensen lets out an amused chuckle. “I think that’ll be okay with him.”

“But not chocolate. Jared says that I can’t have chocolate milkshakes, so he made me pineapple. But I don’t have to always have pineapple do I? Because Jared’s milkshake that he made for himself wasn’t pineapple. It was pink and pineapples aren’t pink and do you think Jared will make me a pink milkshake?”

“MJ Padalecki Ackles, I think Jared will make you anything you want.” Jensen reaches across the table until he can hold her face in his hands, stretching across the space until he can press a kiss to her nose.

Banana split forgotten, MJ falls back on her butt, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Jensen frowns.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“I don’t like Jared.” Her voice is strong, confident, and Jensen would be proud of her definitive statement if he wasn’t so terrified by her words. MJ doesn’t like Jared? But, didn’t she just say that she did? Or did she? She said she liked his milkshakes, but she never said it was okay for him to be a part of their lives and now Jensen’s panicking. What the hell is Jared going to think when he finds out that his own daughter doesn’t want him to be a part of her life, and yeah, MJ is only three years old, and they’ll have plenty of time to bring her around to the idea, but until she’s okay with it, Jared will have to move out and Jensen doesn’t know if he can cope without having Jared _right there_ all the time now and –

“Because, he’s my daddy.” MJ’s words pull Jensen out of his freak-out. “And he should have a special name like you do, Daddy. But you’re my daddy and I can’t call him Daddy, too, so I don’t have a name for him.”

Jensen blinks at her, completely confused by the sideways step the conversation has suddenly taken. “Wait…you don’t like Jared’s _name_?”

“He should have a special name like you do, Daddy,” she insists.

“Okay, but…but you’re okay with him living with us from now on, right? Because if you’re not, you have to say so.”

She gives him a look that Jensen knows she stole straight from Chris. “He’s my daddy.” She says it slowly, like Jensen needs help understanding.

He runs a hand over her hair. “I know he is, sweetheart. Trust me on that.”

“So he should live with us. Because mommies and daddies and mommies and mommies and daddies and daddies always all live together.” MJ nods her head, like that’s the final word she’ll say on the matter, and reaches for her ice-cream again.

“Okay, then.” Jensen smiles, more relived that anything.

“I still need a special name for him.”

 

///

 

When Jared opens his email account, he can’t really understand why there’s over one hundred unread emails waiting for him and he initially assumed they were all spam messages that had somehow made their way out of his spam folder.

He was just clicking on them, ready to delete them all in one click, when the sender’s name caught his attention.

Jensen R. Ackles.

That had been more than a half hour ago and Jared’s still sitting on the couch, staring at his email account.

He knows what’s in the emails; Jensen had told him all about the pseudo-diary he’d kept of unsent emails to Jared, chronicling MJ’s life.

Apparently, they aren’t unsent anymore.

Taking a deep breath, Jared clicks to open the first email. He knows it won’t be long before Jensen is home with MJ, and he needs to be there in case she has any questions, so he steels himself and starts to read.

_Jay,_

_I owe you these, and so much more. I’m only sorry that this is all I can give you._

_Jen_

Clicking back to his inbox, Jared scrolls until he comes to the message that has the oldest date, the one dated the November after he’d left.

_Hey,_

_Sorry, I know we haven’t spoken in a while. I was trying to give you space. Let you settle into your new life without having to worry about me bothering you every few days. I was gonna wait until you emailed me again, or called, but I guess you’re busy and this is kind of important._

_I’m pregnant._

_Yeah, I know. It was kind of a huge shock for me, too. I mean, I didn’t even know I could get pregnant. Never even thought about it._

_The doctors think I’m about twelve weeks, but I’m closer to sixteen. You’re the only person I’ve slept with in years and the only time we didn’t use protection was the night before you left._

_I don’t expect anything. I’m not sending you this because I want you to come back or because I want money or something. Whatever you want to do, I’ll accept it. I just thought you’d want to know that you’re going to be a father._

_I wish I could do this over the phone, but I’m just not strong enough for that._

_I’m sorry._

_Jensen._

Jared sinks deeper into the couch cushions and stares at the words. He wonders how many times Jensen rewrote the email, only for it to spend the next four years in his unsent folder anyway. It’s formal, polite, maybe even a little bit disconnected, like Jensen was already trying to pull himself away from Jared in case Jared decided he really didn’t want anything to do with the baby, preparing himself for the possibility.

The next email makes Jared laugh.

_Danneel went with me to my first sonogram. I was gonna scan the little picture I got and send it to you, but there’s not much to see, just a little peanut-shaped thing._

_I keep thinking about that episode of_ Friends _, when Ross and Rachel see their baby on the monitor for the first time and Rachel can’t see it. That would totally be you if you saw this thing._

_Please don’t tell our baby I called them a thing!_

Laughing, Jared scrolls through the next few emails until he finds one that shows that it has a pictured attached. As much as he loves Jensen – and MJ – he doesn’t think there’s much to learn during the first few months of Jensen’s pregnancy if he wasn’t there to witness it for himself.

_So, as promised, sonogram picture._

_It’s graining and fuzzy, but there it is. You can probably see for yourself, but I had the doctor point out the head and body and everything._

_It’s sucking its thumb._

_You think it’s a girl or a boy? I suppose I should start thinking about names._

_You should be here helping me with that. I’m sorry I don’t have the balls to tell you._

The picture _is_ grainy and fuzzy, but Jared can make it out clearly. MJ is resting on her back, her legs up and her hand up near her mouth and it’s pretty incredible.

This is their daughter, before she was born, when she was growing inside Jensen and it’s just…beautiful.

Saving the picture to his hard drive, Jared chooses the next email with an attached image and sucks in a breath when he sees the baby, looking so small lying in Chris’ arms.

_Her name is Molly-Jay Padalecki Ackles. She was born April 22 nd at 5:06pm and she weighed 4lbs 12oz. I named her after you. Get it? Jay Padalecki._

_She was premature, but the doctors said that can happen in male pregnancies. Not that they’ve seen a lot of male births. Apparently, I’m the first in Texas._

_Guess it’s an accomplishment at least._

_She looks like you. She has your smile and your eyes. Danneel says she’s got my nose, cheekbones, but I can’t see it. The only person I see when I look at her is you._

_I still wish you were here. I thought, after she was born, that it would make me want to tell you even more. It does, in a way, but I still can’t find the words._

The next few emails are all full of photos of MJ growing up. Crying, smiling, crawling, chewing on things when she was teething, making cute little faces when she tastes something she doesn’t like, and Jared gets an ache in his chest over having missed it all.

He doesn’t blame Jensen, not really. He was as much at fault as Jensen was back then, but he still can’t help but resent the parts of MJ’s life that he missed out on.

He gives himself a shake. He can’t look at it like that. Yes, there are important parts of his daughter’s life that he wasn’t a part of and he’s never going to be a part of, but she’s only three years old. There’s so much more of her life that she has to live. And Jared will be right there next to her every step of the way.

Right next to Jensen, too, because Jared has a feeling sending MJ off to college is going to be more traumatic for his boyfriend than his daughter.

Another email further down the list catches his attention. There is no subject in the heading, but it isn’t the lack of one that draws Jared’s eye but the video attachment it contains.

Opening the video in his media player, Jared is greeted to an image of Chad, on his knees on the floor in the middle of Jensen’s living room. MJ is standing in front of him and he’s holding on to her hands like he’s holding her up, keeping her balance. The camera pulls back and Jared can just make out Danneel and Chris on the couch. Chris looks like he’s asleep and Danneel is painting his toenails.

_“Chad, just let go of her hands.”_ That’s Jensen’s voice, but Jared can tell that he’s not behind the camera and he wonders who is.

On the screen, Chad shakes his head. _“No way, man. She’s gonna fall on her little butt.”_ MJ lifts one foot and puts it down in front of the other, and suddenly Jared knows what this is.

This is a video of MJ’s first steps.

_“Yes, she probably will fall. And then she’ll pick herself right back up and start all over again.”_ Donna Ackles is apparently the person taking the video and she pans back again, enough for Jared to see Jensen sitting on the floor not five feet away from Chad and MJ, his arms outstretched towards his daughter.

_“But what if she gets hurt?”_ Chad whines.

_“Oh, for God’s sake, Chad, you’re a nurse,”_ Danneel says from the couch. _“How can you be this moronic?”_

_“It’s different in the abstract,”_ Chad confesses. _“This is a real, live baby whose life is pretty much in my hands right now. It’s kinda hard to get my head around the fact that she’s gonna fall if I let her go!”_

Jensen makes that frustrated-growly sound Jared loves so much. _“Do not make me regret keeping you around, Murray. Come on, man, she’s been doing that little dance-y thing for days. She wants to walk, and I’d rather she do it when everyone’s here to see her, so let. Her. Go.”_

_“God, fine!”_

Chad pulls his hands out of MJ’s and Jared holds his breath as she wobbles unsteadily on her bare feet, Chad’s hands hovering in the air, ready to catch her despite his words.

_“Molly-Jay,”_ Jensen calls. _“Come on, sweetheart, come to Daddy.”_

_“Da!”_ MJ exclaims loudly as she turns in Jensen’s direction.

She’s shaky, unstable, but, carefully, she takes a slow step forward, then another. The whole room, including Jared, seems like it’s holding its’ breath as MJ makes her way slowly across the room to Jensen, her hands reaching out for him just like his are for her.

Even with Chad crawling on his knees behind her, it’s slow progress across the small space for the toddler, but then she’s falling into Jensen’s arms and it’s like the whole room explodes.

_“She did it! She walked!”_ Jensen crows, sweeping MJ into his arms.

_“She didn’t fall!”_ Chad seems completely stunned by this development and Donna chuckles.

_“Oh, trust me, she will.”_

_“Who painted my toenails blue?!”_ Chris sits up from the couch and Danneel runs across the path of the camera before the screen goes black and the video ends.

Someone lets out a squeak and it takes Jared a second to realize the sound isn’t coming from the video on his computer.

“Daddy! Can we paint Uncle Chris’ toes blue again?!” MJ’s voice floats across the living room. “Me and Aunt Danni painted Uncle Chad’s red when he was tired and sleeping on Uncle Chris’ couch last week.”

“That’s it, I’m wearing socks anytime you and Aunt Danni are in the same room together from here on out,” Jensen says with a suppressed laugh.

MJ frowns. “We took Uncle Chad’s socks off.”

Jensen just rolls his eyes and looks back at Jared. “You doing okay?”

Jared manages a nod. “I…yeah. This, this is amazing, seeing this…”

But Jensen shakes his head. “It’s not enough and I know it. I’m just sorry that it’s all I can give you.”

Jared sets his laptop on the coffee table and gets to his feet. He crosses the space separating them in three long strides and takes Jensen’s face in his hands, kissing him soundly.

“It’s enough to know I can be here for the rest of it.”

Jensen smiles at him, pulling him back in for another heat-filled kiss and Jared lets himself get lost in it for a moment until he feels something tugging at the leg of his jeans and he looks down to see MJ staring back with a huge smile on her face.

“Pop, I drawed you a picture, Pop.”

Jared feels his breath catch in his throat at the name, and in his arms, Jensen chuckles.

“She’s been so desperate to try that out she practically ran all the way home.”

Letting go of Jensen, Jared sits down on the floor and pulls MJ close, his heart fluttering a little when she climbs right onto his lap like there’s no place else in the world she’d rather be and holds the piece of paper in her hands out towards him.

“Is this for me?” he asks, taking it from her.

“Yep,” she beams up at him. “I drawed it when Daddy was talking to Ms. Sandy.”

“Drew,” Jared corrects automatically, glancing up with a smile when he notices his voice has melded with Jensen’s.

“Drew,” MJ repeats, carefully annunciating the word. “I _drew_ it when Daddy was talking to Ms. Sandy.”

“So who are all these people?” Jared asks and MJ twists around on his lap until she can see the picture and Jared is looking over her shoulder.

“That’s me.” She points to the smallest two-legged stick figure on the paper. “And that’s Daddy and that’s you, Pop.”

“Pop, huh?” Jared says, awed by the word.

“I can’t call you Jared,” MJ says, the ‘duh’ clearly implied in her tone.

Jared kisses the top of her head. “Pop’s just fine with me, baby girl.” He turns his head to find Jensen, his temple resting against his daughter’s hair. He spots his boyfriend leaning against the doorjamb, watching them closely. There are tears in his eyes, and Jared’s suddenly concerned. “Are you okay?”

Jensen gives him a watery smile. “I’ve honestly never been better.”

They share a sweet, private look before MJ shifts in Jared’s lap and he turns his attention back to her, and another figure in the drawing catches his attention.

“Who’s this?”

“That’s the doggie we’re gonna get,” she informs him simply, like it’s already a done deal. “Daddy says I couldn’t get one til I was bigger, but I’m bigger now, I go to school and everything.”

Jared fights a smile. “A dog, huh?” Yeah, he can imagine a dog running around the place. Not one of those little handbag mutts, though. Something bigger, that can grow with MJ.

“I knew it wouldn’t be long before you two started ganging up on me,” Jensen says as he pushes away from the door and turns towards the kitchen. “Christ.”

MJ looks up at Jared with wide eyes and Jared can’t help but laugh as their voices mingle and ring over the quiet of the house.

“You gotta put a dollar in the cuss jar!”

 

Fin

 


End file.
